The Hungry City: A Mayor's Experience With Unemployment

I

IN December 1929, when I was mayor of Youngstown,¹ I attended a conference on unemployment at Cleveland, called at the request of President Hoover. It was held at the Chamber of Commerce, under the chairmanship of Mr. Elroy J. Kulas, president of the Otis Steel Company, and was attended by public officials of northern Ohio.

Speaker after speaker told what his community would do to end the depression, and how quickly it, would be done. The unemployed were to be set marching gayly back to work without an instant’s delay, and the two-car garage was to be made ready for further enlargement.

When it came my turn to speak, I said rather brutally: ‘This is all plain bunk. We know that our cities and counties are in debt and have bond limitations imposed by the state. If all of us were to start this minute drawing up a programme of public improvements, it would require months to get the legislation through. Why not tell the people the truth?’

After the meeting many of the officials said to me: ‘Mayor, you are right. There is n’t much we can do. But we have to go along, don’t we?’

Five months later I went to Germany and visited a number of cities. Everywhere I saw that the German people were in a bad way. On returning home, I made a public statement that Germany was on the verge of economic collapse, and predicted that the depression would take five years to run its course. Thereupon I asked for a bond issue of $1,000,000 for unemployment relief. Many leading business men went out of their way to show their disapproval. One of them voiced the opinion of the majority when he said to me: ‘You make a bad mistake in talking about the unemployed. Don’t emphasize hard times and everything will be all right.’ An influential newspaper chastised me for ‘ borrowing trouble’; the depression would be over, the editor maintained, before relief would be needed.

Discussion dragged on for several months, and the gravity of the situation was so deliberately misrepresented by the entire business community that when the bond issue finally came to a ballot, in November 1930, it was voted down.

Thus we passed into the early days of 1931 — fourteen months after the first collapse — with no relief in sight except that which was provided by the orthodox charities. Not a single move had been made looking toward action by a united community.

Strange as it may seem, there was no way in which the city government could embark upon a programme of its own. We had no funds available for emergency relief, and without specific authorization from the people we could not issue bonds. To get around that obstacle we urged the state legislature to amend the law so as to modify our bond limitation, but that body was reluctant to pass a relief bill. Finally, after a long delay, it agreed upon a halfway measure which permitted the cities to sell bonds for the limited purpose of providing for their indigents. It made no pretense of supplying new employment for the jobless, but it furthered this end to some degree by indirection. Up to this time all funds for poor relief had been appropriated from general receipts, such as taxes. The new bonds removed this strain upon taxes, so that the money which had formerly been set aside for this purpose was released for public works. A few of the unemployed were thus given part-time jobs improving the parks.

Inadequate as it was, this legislative relief was all that the great State of Ohio could bring itself to grant, and even this pittance was withheld until the crisis had already run through more than eighteen devastating months.

I have cited these instances from my experience as mayor of an industrial city because they illustrate perfectly the state of mind which has been America’s greatest handicap in dealing with the depression. Everyone will remember the assurances that were freely given out in November and December, 1929, by the highest authorities in government and business. The country, we were told, was ‘fundamentally sound.’ Nevertheless, general unemployment continued to increase through the winter. Then in the spring of 1930 was predicted that we might expect an upward turn any minute. Yet the summer slid past with hope unfulfilled. Winter came again, and conditions had grown steadily worse; still nothing was done, because we were reluctant face the truth. Our leaders, having made a bad guess in the beginning, have been unwilling to admit their error. With the foolish consistency which the hobgoblin of little minds, they have persistently rejected reality and allowed our people to suffer by pretending that all would be well on the morrow.

II

In spite of the insurmountable handicaps under which the cities have labored in trying to cope with the emergency, desperate men and women out of work have stormed city halls from coast to coast demanding jobs. It has been a waste of breath for mayors to explain that they have no authority to put men to work when municipal treasuries are empty. ‘Don’t hand us that,’ is a response I have heard over and over again. ‘Do you mean to tell us that the city could n’t raise the money if it wanted to?’ This, of course, has been the real tragedy of the situation: the cities could not raise the money.

One man I had known for years stood at my desk and calmly said: ‘ My wife is frantic. After working at the steel mill for twenty-five years, I have lost my job, and I’m too old to get other work. If you can’t do something for me, I’m going to kill myself.’ I knew he was desperate. Through friends I managed to find him a little job where he could earn enough to keep body and soul together.

In another instance a newspaper man urged me to find work for one of his neighbors, a man who had a wife and four sons — all rugged citizens who preferred to starve rather than accept public charity. ‘You could hardly believe what they live on,’ the reporter told me. ‘The mother mixes a little flour and water, and cooks it in a frying pan. That is their regular meal.’ Eventually I found work for one of the sons, and he became the sole support of the others.

To my home came a sad-eyed woman, the mother of nine children. No one in the family had had work in more than a year. ‘ How do you manage to live?’ I asked her. ‘I can’t tell you,’she replied simply; ‘I really don’t know.’ Christmas 1930 was marked by the usual campaign for the most needy cases, and this family was included in the list. They got their Christmas basket all right, but when the holidays were over they were no better off than they had been before.

As time went on, business conditions showed no improvement. Every night hundreds of homeless men crowded into the municipal incinerator, where they found warmth even though they had to sleep on heaps of garbage. In January 1931, I obtained the cooperation of the City Council to convert an abandoned police station into a ‘flop-house.’ The first night it was filled, and it has remained filled ever since. I made a point of paying frequent visits to this establishment so that I could see for myself what kind of men these down-and-outers were, and I heartily wish that those folk who have made themselves comfortable by ignoring and denying the suffering of their less fortunate neighbors could see some of the sights I saw. There were old men gnarled by heavy labor, young mechanics tasting the first bitterness of defeat, clerks and white-collar workers learning the equality of misery, derelicts who fared no worse in bad times than in good, Negroes who only a short time before had come from Southern cotton fields, now glad to find any shelter from the cold, immigrants who had been lured to Van Dyke’s ‘land of youth and freedom’ — each one a personal tragedy, and all together an overwhelming catastrophe for the nation.

With the guest list filled, we entrusted the operation of the new caravanserai to one of the organizations that had had long experience in such work. Soon, however, a group of Communists appeared and set up soviet rule, and the officer in charge threw up his hands in defeat. At this juncture I paid the place a visit to see what could be done. As I glanced over the men, my attention was arrested by a pair of steady blue eyes which looked at me with a level gaze. ‘ What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Wilson, sir.’ I heard the heels click together.

‘Army or navy?’

‘Marines, sir.’

‘What rank?’

‘Sergeant, sir.’

‘Sergeant,’ I said, ‘the city has no funds to run this hotel. Unless it can manage to support itself, I ’ll have to turn you all out in the cold. Do you think you can run it and keep these Communists away?’

‘If you put me in charge, sir, I’ll run it.’

‘Good! Appoint your details.’

‘All right, you men,’ came the command, ‘line up in that other room. Outside, you fellows,’ to the Communists, ‘and remember, don’t come back here unless you want me to mop up the floor with you.’

Sergeant Wilson put the place under military discipline. The men were ordered out of their bunks at six o’clock every morning. Blankets were then rolled and cots stacked. (This equipment had been sent to us by the War Department.) All men not on detail were ordered to look for work about the city. A dispensary was set up, with doctors volunteering their services to attend to those who fell ill. A kitchen was established and details went forth each day under the escort of two policemen to solicit food. Trouble arose only once, when fifty Communists appeared on the scene and declared their intention to organize ‘the workers.5 Sergeant Wilson received the leader in true marine style, and the other forty-nine scattered without waiting to see how the battle would end.

Sergeant Wilson is still in command. He has disagreed with the city authorities on only one point. He wanted us to stop calling his establishment a flophouse, and asked permission to put a new sign over the door. The sign read, ‘Friendly Inn.’ Thousands of men who have wandered across the country looking for work will remember it.

With the Friendly Inn a going concern, the homeless men were provided for, but many families in Youngstown remained in desperate need. To take care of them I made a quiet investigation among the city employees, and learned that most of them were willing to contribute to a special relief fund. When this was announced, however, the executive secretary of the Community Chest stated curtly that such relief measures were quite unnecessary. I mention this episode because, again, it illustrates the point of view of those who all along have sought to minimize the seriousness of the crisis. Such pronouncements have been made so repeatedly in certain quarters that one might almost think there was a conspiracy abroad in the land to conceal the gravity of the problems which this depression has raised.

III

I have often been asked about my experience with Communists. The depression bred agitators just as naturally as prohibition bred bootleggers. In the summer of 1930 the Communists at Youngstown solicited recruits among the unemployed. They demanded that the City Council and the mayor provide jobs and give money to all who needed it; they organized marches on the City Hall, and finally staged a grand rally in the Public Square. Their activities thrust forward troublesome questions of free speech and free assembly — questions which may look simple enough to the ordinary citizen, but those in authority never know how far it is safe to let things take their own course. In other cities the Communists had already had clashes with the police, and I wanted to avoid similar disturbances if they could be prevented. Thinking that it would be better to let the agitators talk than to suppress them and make martyrs of them, I decided to permit the rally.

On the day of this demonstration the Communists descended on Youngstown from every city in the Northeast and Middle West. They carried the usual banners and placards: ‘Don’t Starve — Fight,’ ’Down with the Bosses,5 ‘Capitalism Must Go,’ ‘Read the Daily Worker,’ ‘To Hell with the Police.’ There were cheers for Soviet Russia and seditious speeches, but the police had orders not to interfere, and after two hours of violent harangues the orators exhausted themselves to no purpose. The meeting broke up in a march on City Hall, and we called it a day.

For several months after this there were no other demonstrations. The winter of 1930-31 passed, but as the spring advanced we learned that the Communists had decided to make another effort to arouse the steel district. Youngstown, because of its great mills and the numbers of its unemployed, was to be the centre of the battle. The campaign was to open on Memorial Day. The war veterans had already been given their customary permit to parade on this day, and if the Communists were also to march I was afraid there would be a clash between them. This, I thought, ought to be avoided in the interest of public safety. Therefore, when the Communists applied for a permit to parade, I refused it. Whereupon they announced that they would march without a permit.

At this point the veterans began to take a special interest in the matter. They held meetings to consider what they would do if the Communists made trouble. For my part, I decided that everything would have to be left to the constituted authorities, so I announced that action from the outside could not be tolerated. The veterans acquiesced. Afterward, when it was all over, I talked with one of the commanders, who said to me, ‘If you had needed us, we were ready. But we did not want to add to your difficulties.’

Meanwhile we set calmly about our preparations to handle the emergency. Youngstown had been through a disastrous riot in 1917, as well as the steel strike of 1920, so we understood all the dangers of a public uprising. We realized that the agitators had selected Memorial Day in order to emphasize their class struggle. Among our large foreign-born and colored population they thought they would have a fertile field for revolutionary doctrine, and they counted upon being able to work more effectively when these groups were conscious that they had no real part in the patriotic celebration.

The chief of police was a large, slowmoving, unexcitable man with a goodnatured face and a soft voice, but his courage was beyond question. A detail of mounted traffic officers was placed under the direction of a captain who was experienced in managing crowds; he was a big, handsome Swede who wore his uniform as proudly as if he were Gustavus Adolphus with a triumphant army at his back. All available patrolmen and plain-clothes men were marshaled for special duty. Both the chief and the captain assured me that there was no cause for worry, that their men were cool and ready. But it was not a light responsibility to give the orders for this occasion which might see many men injured, some perhaps killed. It made me think back to my war days in France, for I experienced something of the same keyed-up feeling.

When Memorial Day dawned the Communists poured into town in hundreds of trucks and automobiles. They had established headquarters in vacant lots near the main street, and here they formed their columns with a screen of children in the front of the line. When the leaders gave the command to march, the mounted police captain swung his men across the formation, at the same time saying to the mob, ‘You people can’t parade to-day. Mayor’s orders.’ He was answered by shouts: ‘Kill the police! Kill the police!’ Stones and other missiles were hurled from the crowd, and the captain was struck with a paving brick and knocked from his horse. The bombardment continued to the accompaniment of curses, insults, and cries of defiance, with the marchers milling about and trying to get under way. Once more the police moved forward, the injured captain again in the lead.

Before the hostilities commenced, a slight, dark-complexioned man of middle age had stood prominently on a truck giving directions to the crowd. He was recognized as the leader in command. As the parade started off and the marchers were intercepted, he had been the first to yell, ‘Fight! Fight! Kill the police!’ But the moment the fighting began he leaped from his truck and ran like a rabbit in the opposite direction. He was captured six blocks away.

In the meantime the conflict had become a hand-to-hand engagement. The police, instructed not to use their guns, were roughly handled, and several of them sustained injuries that sent, them to the hospital. The battle was over within fifteen minutes, but a number of Communists were also hurt and had to be carried off in ambulances. More than two hundred of them were taken to jail. Later the leader, who at first denied his identity, was brought to trial and convicted, but the others were finally turned loose.

An examination of the Communists who were arrested made it evident that a far-flung campaign had been planned. Printed instructions, maps, directions to places for eating and sleeping — everything showed that careful attention had been given to details of organization. Companies of Communists had come from Cincinnati, Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Rochester, and other cities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The entire programme, in fact, was clearly a movement of the national Communist party, and was in no sense a demonstration growing out of unrest among our own people.

After this clash I announced that the Communists might hold a meeting at the Public Square whenever they chose to do so. It seemed the best policy to give them this opportunity in order to avoid the appearance of discriminating against them. They seized the occasion and made plans for a rally of national scope, with William Z. Foster as the main attraction. Some years before I had met Mr. Foster and was surprised at his erudition and quiet fortitude. I knew him to be a man of more capacity than his opponents liked to admit, but this Youngstown meeting passed off without any disturbance. The crowd was large but apathetic, and was evidently drawn together more by curiosity than by sympathy for Communism.

IV

Throughout this period the distress of the people, which the Communists had sought to exploit, continued without abatement. The great industries had displaced thousands of men, and business conditions showed no signs of improving. Many of the unemployed who had had small reserves to fall back upon in the beginning had now exhausted their resources. One began to see destitute women walking the streets begging for food, and often small children trudged after them. In one week the chief of police reported to me that four women with nursing infants in their arms had sought shelter at police stations.

By the early summer of 1931, demands for relief had become so heavy that the charity organizations were overwhelmed. Federal and state officials now admitted that they had sadly underestimated the gravity of the situation. By this time the city had come into possession of money from the first bonds that had been sold under the special bill passed by the legislature. We had planned a relief programme of our own to supplement that of the charities, with disbursements apportioned throughout the year. The head of the Community Chest pleaded with us, however, to take over immediately a number of his most urgent cases, and we could not refuse. Consequently we had to spend our money as rapidly as it came in, and the last half of the year was left to take care of itself, with the hope that other funds could be raised at that time.

How does a city administer relief measures? The money which we had available for this purpose was turned over to the park department. Every man who applied for help had to submit to an investigation by the department of health. If the inspectors reported that his case was desperate, he was given an order on the superintendent of parks for two days’ work a week. It was obviously impossible to extend aid to any but the most hopeless cases. If a man owned a small home, if a young couple possessed furniture, if a woman had a good coat or her husband a presentable suit, these things had to be sacrificed first. Not until they had drained every other resource was official charity able to do anything for them.

Under these circumstances it is needless to point out that countless numbers of the most worthy citizens received no help at all. Indeed, Youngstown’s experience in unemployment relief proves beyond question that the benefits of such measures are confined almost wholly to colored people and those of foreign birth. Men of education, unfortunates in the class of whitecollar workers, mechanics and mill employees who have held positions of consequence, are left out in the cold. They need help as badly as the others, but nothing has been done for them. Hosts of these newly poor, after exhausting every resource of credit and friendship, have sunk down to the lower levels, from which they may never rise again.

In the autumn of 1931 a final blow laid the city of Youngstown prostrate. The atmosphere was poisoned with a new fever of apprehension, with rumors that began no one knew where and ended in panic. ‘Have you heard?’ everybody whispered excitedly. ‘The banks . . . buzz, buzz, buzz ... the banks!’ People who were fortunate enough to have money deposited hurried to withdraw it. Day after day the drain continued, and the bankers had to stand by helplessly while their reserves melted away. Then three of the banks closed their doors, and fear ran riot.

At once concerted efforts were made to protect the other banks. Depositors were besought not to withdraw their savings and were urged to bring back what they had carried away to hide. Statements calling upon the people to have confidence were issued by everyone of supposed influence. The ministers joined the campaign with sermons on civic faith and hope. But confidence was shattered. Had not everybody in authority, from the President down, been making optimistic statements for two years, and had not subsequent events disproved all predictions? Could anybody be trusted to tell the truth? Did anybody really know? People stood on the street corners asking each other anxious questions. Never before had all the old landmarks of security been so shattered. Never had Youngstown suffered such a shock to the spirit which had made it one of the great industrial centres of the world. Nobody could now deny that America was in the throes of a panic.

Another winter was approaching. The numbers of the unemployed had increased, and suffering had grown acute. Many heads of families had not earned a penny in two years. Landlords clamored for their rents and sought evictions. Communists protested loudly and threatened to use force to put back anyone who was dispossessed. Thousands of the city’s water bills were unpaid, and officials were torn between their desire to be charitable, their fear of disease if the water were cut off, and the city’s urgent need of money. Property owners could not pay their taxes, and delinquencies became appalling.

Such a large proportion of the taxes were uncollectable that the city and county governments had to face the certainty that unless something was done they would soon lack funds to operate. A wild clamor went up to reduce public expenditures. (A year before, the cry had been to keep men at work.) The budget for 1932 would have to be cut 40 per cent. This meant that innumerable men who had been saved from starvation by doing part-time work would have to be turned away to join the ranks of the wholly unemployed. In consideration of this dilemma a special one-mill tax levy for relief was finally voted at the November election, but it was apparent that the returns from this source would have to be substantially discounted because of tax delinquencies. As in Cleveland, we adopted the slogan, ‘Pay your taxes, so the hungry can be fed,’ and the words meant just what they said, for by this time the private charities were swamped, desperate, and bankrupt.

Such was the state of affairs in Youngstown as we turned the corner of the new year, and it is common knowledge that many another oncethriving community now finds itself in the same predicament. What 1932 may do to alter these conditions no one can say, but perhaps we should take cold comfort in the thought that, no matter what turn events may take, they are bound to induce a change for the better, since it is hardly conceivable that the situation can grow much worse than it already is.

V

Often, as I have watched the line of job seekers at the City Hall, I have had occasion to marvel at the mysterious power that certain words and phrases exercise upon the human mind. A wise man once observed that words rule mankind, and so it is in America today. Prominent politicians and business men have repeatedly stated that, come what may, America must not have the dole. To be sure, we should all be much happier if we could get along without a dole, but the simple truth is that we have it already. Every city in the land has had a dole from the moment it began unemployment relief. The men who apply for help know that it is a dole. The officials who issue work orders can be in no doubt about it, for the work done in no way justifies the money spent, except on the basis of a dole.

Why, then, so much concern about the word? Perhaps because, if we were honest enough to recognize unemployment relief for the dole it really is, we should also have to be honest enough to admit that the depression is a catastrophe of historic proportions, and courageous enough to deal with it accordingly. One alternative to the dole would be to let all the unfortunates starve to death, but so far no one has advanced this proposal, although some have come pretty close to it in saying that the way out of the depression is to let nature take its course.

Those who have not been willing to go so far as that have maintained, however, that each community must look after its own unemployed, and that under no circumstances must the Federal Government assume any responsibility for them. For two years local communities have carried the burden unassisted, and many of them, like Youngstown, have prostrated themselves in doing it. We of the cities have done our best, laboring against conditions which were beyond our control. But, even if we are given full credit for trying, we must now admit that we have failed miserably. Whether this was caused by a lack of simple charity in the hearts of our people or by our incapacity to manage our financial problems is beside the point. The fact of our failure is patent. We of the cities have not advanced a single new idea on unemployment or its relief. We have not dared to consider the fundamental questions raised by our social and economic collapse. We are still as stupidly devoted as ever to the philosophy of laissez faire, and we face the future bewildered and purposeless. Our one great achievement in response to this national catastrophe has been to open soup kitchens and flop-houses.

And nobody has taken the trouble to weigh the consequences of our wellmeant but ineffective charity upon the moral fibre of the American people. Seventy years ago we fought a civil war to free black slaves; to-day we remain indifferent while millions of our fellow citizens are reduced to the status of paupers. There is a world of difference between mere poverty and pauperism. The honest poor will struggle for years to keep themselves above the pauper class. With quiet desperation they will bear hunger and mental anguish until every resource is exhausted. Then comes the ultimate struggle when, with heartache and an overwhelming sense of disgrace, they have to make the shamefaced journey to the door of public charity. This is the last straw. Their self-respect is destroyed; they undergo an insidious metamorphosis, and sink down to spiritless despondency.

This descent from respectability, frequent enough in the best of times, has been hastened immeasurably by two years of business paralysis, and the people who have been affected in this manner must be numbered in millions. This is what we have accomplished with our bread lines and soup kitchens. I know, because I have seen thousands of these defeated, discouraged, hopeless men and women, cringing and fawning as they come to ask for public aid. It is a spectacle of national degeneration. That is the fundamental tragedy for America. If every mill and factory in the land should begin to hum with prosperity to-morrow morning, the destructive effect of our haphazard relief measures would not work itself out of the nation’s blood until the sons of our sons had expiated the sins of our neglect.

Even now there are signs of rebellion against a system so out of joint that it can only offer charity to honest men who want to work. Sometimes it takes the form of social agitation, but again it may show itself in a revolt that is absolute and final. Such an instance was reported in a Youngstown newspaper on the day I wrote these lines: —

FATHER OF TEN DROWNS SELF

JUMPS FROM BRIDGE, STARTS TO SWIM

GIVES UP, OUT OF WORK TWO YEARS

Out of work two years, Charles Wayne, aged 57, father of ten children, stood on the Spring Common bridge this morning, watching hundreds of other persons moving by on their way to work. Then he took off his coat, folded it carefully, and jumped into the swirling Mahoning River. Wayne was born in Youngstown and was employed by the Republic Iron and Steel Company for twenty-seven years as a hot mill worker.

‘We were about to lose our home,’ sobbed Mrs. Wayne. ‘And the gas and electric companies had threatened to shut off the service.'