AN APPALACHIAN NEW DEAL: WEST VIRGINIA IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION

6. A Failed Experiment in Federal Relief

6 A Failed Experiment in Federal Relief The NRA brought some recovery to the coal industry, stimulated business activities in the many communities dependent upon coal, and lowered the state's high unemployment figures. Even so, unemployment remained a severe problem in West Virginia as in the country , and the question of what should be done to help the unemployed demanded the New Dealers' attention. One of the enduring consequences of the New Deal was a nationwide move away from reliance on private and local care of the indigent and unemployed toward a more public, centralized, bureaucratic, and professional approach to relief. It was a difficult task and proceeded with mixed results across the country. Convinced that only federal help could save the unemployed, President Roosevelt took a more positive attitude toward federal relief than Herbert Hoover. He enlisted his New York director of relief, Harry Hopkins, for a similar role in the federal government. On May 12, 1933, Congress passed legislation setting up the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) to take over emergency relief from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. New Deal efforts to provide relief for the unemployed and the establishment of Social Security in 1936 set the nature of American social welfare for at least half a century .1 FERA represented something of an experiment in federal-state cooperation in providing relief for both the unemployed and the unemployable . Congress appropriated $500 million to FERA for distribution to the states through grants (rather than loans), half of which required matching funds from the states. The power to give or withhold the grants gave the federal government a means of persuading states to contribute to the relief efforts. By requiring that the states A Failed Experiment 113 set up centralized relief agencies, the legislation helped to eliminate the archaic local administration of relief, which prevailed in most states. Federal requirements and the development of state agencies led to much wider participation in relief activities. FERA and other federal agencies often required broadly representative boards on both the state and local levels, but the carrying out of federal programs by largely untrained, unprepared, and sometimes uncommitted state administrations tended to frustrate New Deal relief and reform goals.2 The Conley administration had set up a state relief agency during its waning months, and its machinery became the basic conduit for federal relief funds in the early days of the New Deal. In time the West Virginia Unemployment Relief Administration-later called the West Virginia Relief Administration (WVRA)-would be the focus of much political contretemps, but, preoccupied with the Tax Limitation Amendment and its ramifications, Governor Kump gave almost no attention to unemployment relief in the early months of his administration . He accepted the bipartisan board of the West Virginia Unemployment Relief Administration that had been appointed by Governor Conley. Conley had appointed Maj. Francis Turner, a Democrat , acting director of the Department of Public Welfare when Calvert Estill resigned as director with just a few weeks remaining of the Conley administration, and Turner continued in the position with the Kump administration. An insurance man from St. Albans, Turner had served as the chairman of child welfare for the American Legion before accepting the position as acting director. The Department of Public Welfare served as the administrative arm of the Relief Administration until November 1933, when the West Virginia Civil Works Administration took over.3 The Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933 provided for direct payments to the unemployed, but Hopkins encouraged the states to follow the New York example and to use the federal money for work relief rather than for welfare handouts. West Virginia was one of the states that most closely followed Hopkins's advice. Hopkins strongly believed that the dole was demoralizing. If the private sector could not provide enough employment, he believed, the government should step in and provide a living wage for government-generated work projects. Hopkins and his staff also stressed the need to use the money for women and white collar unemployed as well as for the traditional blue-collar unemployed. When FERA proved unable to meet the burgeoning need with the winter of 1933-1934 on the way, Hopkins went 114 An Appalachian New Deal to the White House and persuaded Roosevelt to support a federal workrelief program, the Civil Works Administration (CWA). The experiences with FERA and CWA provided the background for the larger program of federal work...