Edith Abbott | The Nation

The collapse of the FERA has brought great suffering over wide areas of the U.S., not only for the unfortunate, mislabeled "unemployables," but also for large numbers of the able-bodied unemployed. These are the unemployed who came on the relief-rolls after the arbitrary dead line of November 1, 1935 set up by the Federal Works Progress Administrator as the date after which no more "employables" would be accepted for the new WPA program. Among the employables who are still on relief are also large numbers of able-bodied women, for whom street work and the other WPA jobs have not been exactly suitable.

The Washington announcements that a new employment or work-relief program is to be initiated on a much more adequate scale than even the CWA is good news to all who understand the unmerited sufferings of the unemployed and their eagerness for work. Greatly respected citizens apparently have some mysterious faith in the supposed virtue of local taxes and local administration. The liberal and generous-spirited President of the United States still speaks almost devoutly of the importance of the local communities "doing their part"-as if they had adequate funds and leadership for a social-welfare program.

The article presents information various political developments related to the U.S. The Federal Emergency Relief Act of the special session of the Congress is more generous in spirit, as well as in the, funds provided by the federal government, than the Republican act of July, 1932. The present Federal Emergency Relief Act, which was so long under consideration both by the expiring Republican and the new Democratic Congress, is a brief statute that carefully evades the old unsolved and unsolvable problem of local relief and passes it on to the new relief administrator to struggle with, single-handed.