Senator MCKELLAR. Do you make these purchases, or do you distribute the money to the various States? Mr. HOPKINS. We make no appropriations to the several States. We use the Navy Procurement Section. Everything we buy is bought on bids. Senator MCKELLAR. Here in Washington? Mr. HOPKINS. Here in Washington. In effect, we act as an agent for the various States. That has amounted to the purchase and distribution of $80,000,000 worth of surplus farm commodities. Senator HALE. Over the entire period? Mr. HOPKINS. That has taken place in the past 6 months. The large expenditures were for hogs. Senator DICKINSON. I would like to have a list of the purchases. Mr. HOPKINS. I will file with the committee a report showing the division of the cost of that between the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Some of these funds were funds of the Agricultural Adjustment administration, where they asked us to distribute these things to the unemployed. They made some of these purchases. We acted as their agents. Senator HALE. The purchases were made with their money? The statement I have inserted indicates the break-down in terms of the number of hogs, in addition to pounds. Senator BYRNES. I notice on page 33 of the House hearings is a most elaborate statement, month by month. Senator DICKINSON. It is not necessary to cover all those things. Mr. HOPKINS. If the committee wishes, I could bring this down to the first of May. In the House hearings it is only through April. Senator BYRNES. It would just be a difference of 1 month. Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. Senator HALE. You gave, as one of the reasons why the $950,000,000 did not extend as far as you expected, the drought situation. Mr. HOPKINS. Yes, sir. Senator HALE. We shall probably be called upon to appropriate additional funds for drought relief. Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. Senator HALE. Can you tell us how much has already been expended for that purpose? Mr. HOPKINS. I think up to date we have spent about $30,000,000. Senator HALE. The House makes provision for an additional $48,000,000. Mr. HOPKINS. In the House bill. Conditions have changed radically in the last few weeks. I think there is a totally new picture in the drought. I do not know whether this committee wishes to go into that at this time or not, inasmuch as there will be made to Congress a special request for drought relief. Senator HALE Do you contemplate having that put in the deficiency bill? Mr. HOPKINS. I do not know how that is going to be done. I have no idea. Senator MCKELLAR. From your knowledge of the drought situation, do you think it will require as much as that? Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. We need some money very badly for loans. So far as this bill is concerned, anything I have to say this morning is exclusive of the drought situation. hav con an of Senator HALE. Except insofar as the bill provides for $48,000,000. Mr. HOPKINS. I would like to make an explanation in regard to that $48,000,000. When I testified before the House committee I indicated that I believed we would need an average of at least $6,000,000 a month for drought relief. Since that time the situation has become for so much worse and the need so much greater that we feel that the Sta drought should be handled as a separate matter and with a much larger appropriation, which would include many things that were not anticipated in my testimony, including the lending of funds to farmers, purchase of additional cattle, and so forth. Senator MCKELLAR. I notice they have had some rains in the West. Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. Senator MCKELLAR. I wondered if that would change the situation. Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. Senator MCKELLAR. They will still have the time to raise crops? Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. There are several things in connection with that. These rains have resulted in several things in that connection. The most important one of them, to my mind, is the improvement of the morale of the farmers. They feel very much encouraged. They feel they will again have a chance to earn a living off their land. Secondly, it seems that we won in the gamble we made on forage crops. We appropriated about $4,000,000 for seed for forage crops, when we were not sure there would be a good crop, We thought it wise to take a chance, because if they did not have the seed and it rained they would be in a bad predicament. The money we spent for the seed will be returned many times. Senator MCKELLAR. What is your information with reference to the buying of cattle? Mr. HOPKINS. There are hundreds of thousands of cattle that are underfed. There is no question but that a large number of them should be removed, even without the drought. Congress has already indicated that a large number should be removed, and with the drought it seems much more desirable. It is desirable to step up the purchase of cattle very considerably. This month we are moving into new fields. We are going into the drilling of wells as part of a water program. Senator BYRNES. You are going to submit an estimate for a large amount and then going to submit comparative programs of expendi ture? Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. Senator BYRNES. Your statement at this time is directed to the amount which you asked be included in this general appropriation? Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. Senator BYRNES. It will not be necessary to consider this piecemeal matter at all? Mr. HOPKINS. I think that would be much better-to consider it all in one appropriation. Senator BYRNES. You would prefer an appropriation of $500,000,000 in one bill? Rather than appropriating a certain sum in addition to the $48,000,000 provided for in this bill? gre Au De Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. Our need of relief for the future is so pressing that we will have to do what we have always done before: We will have to estimate what we think the needs are going to be, and as conditions change our estimates will necessarily change. It is only an estimate. Our best estimate is this: Until the first of March, when Congress will have been in session 2 months, we will require out of Federal funds an average of about $87,000,000 a month to provide for direct relief and a minimum amount of work relief to the various States. I have filed with the committee an estimate of that, broken down by months, which indicates it is smaller in the summer and greater in the fall. (The document referred to is here printed in full, as follows:) 1 These estimates represent only forecasts as to average expenditures and do not represent definite allocations. While an attempt has been made to estimate the possible trend in most general relief costs, it should be understood that this is based only on past experience, and that the estimates for any one month are subject to considerable change. Except for commodity purchases no estimate has been made to indicate the possible trend in the special types of expenditures, inasmuch as the fluctuations of need cannot at this time be predicted. Senator DICKINSON. With your experience of a billion and a half from May to May, are you now indicating to the committee the necessity for the appropriation of a billion? Mr. HOPKINS. No. I am going to indicate to the committee a minimum need, which I will qualify as an average of $110,000,000 a month of Federal funds. I will break that down into the sums for which it will be needed. These things must be considered: First, the minimum relief to the needy unemployed families. We have now about 4,000,000 families on the relief rolls. We have, in addition some 600,000 single persons on the relief rolls. We have nearly the same number on the relief rolls now as we had a year ago. We reached the lowest point last October-just under 3,000,000 families. Senator DICKINSON. Do you have a graph showing that? Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. I think there is very little likelihood that it is going to drop as low as it was last year. The longer this depression lasts, the higher will be the percentage of the total number of unemployed on the relief rolls. While we have more people employed than were employed a year ago, we have the same number of families 66572-34- 6 on relief. In 1930 we may have had about 5 percent of the unemployed; in 1931, 10 or 15 percent, and so on. The longer it lasts, the higher the percentage. Senator MCCARRAN. What is the reason for that? Mr. HOPKINS. A man might be out of work for 2 years and yet be able to get by. When 2 years have passed he breaks down and cannot swing it any longer. Senator HALE. How many did you say you have on the rolls now? Senator HALE. How much will that average per family? Senator DICKINSON. Do you have a tabulation showing by States the percentage of contributions by the States and the percentage of contributions by the Federal Government? Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. Senator DICKINSON. I would like to have that in the record. Mr. HOPKINS. A statement showing the percentage of funds appropriated by the Federal Government and by the States appears at page 63 of the House hearing on H.R. 7527. (The document referred to is on file with the committee.) Senator HALE. Do these families on the relief rolls do any work? Mr. HOPKINS. I was coming to that. Of the total number of families which, as I indicated, is about 4 million, something less than a million are receiving their benefits by work. That is, we have about a million families on what we call "work relief." They are working on public projects, and receive per family per week the amount necessary to maintain minimum needs. Nobody is working on our program who has not been designated as in need of relief. Senator DICKINSON. Does that include artists and teachers? Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. We had 2 million at work under work relief under the Civil Works Administration. Senator HALE. In this fund for work relief do you include people working for the C.W.A.? Mr. HOPKINS. There are none now. Senator HALE. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration? Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. It is 1 million out of the 4 million. The reason there is not a higher number than that working is the cost. There is no question that work relief costs more than direct relief. You can give a man a grocery order, or pay his doctor's bill, buy him some shoes or clothing, much cheaper than you can put him to work on a public project. Senator ADAMS. Some one has made the statement that it costs about three times as much. Mr. HOPKINS. Not that much, Senator, but about 30 percent more, because of the cost of materials. These men are working on much better projects than we had before. I would rather not have a work program than to have men working on projects that are no good. In the first place, the men know it. They feel badly about it. Secondly, the public, the taxpayer, sees them working on projects that are no good, and they don't like it. It has a considerable effect on public minion. We have had enough experience with that to know that on use I рео bas peo the ber son pay mo ab Ou I W re that if we are going to have any benefit through work, it must be on public projects that are of some importance, and are socially useful. I think there is nothing that undermines the morale of these people more than to keep them month after month on a direct-relief basis, especially where you have ablebodied men. Some of these people, of course, should be on direct relief, probably 25 percent of the total; but the rest of them, in my opinion, should receive their benefits by work. If they are going to receive benefits by work, some taxing unit will have to pay more than they would otherwise pay. We have got to pay more money for materials. If we are going to build a sewer, we must buy sewer pipe, which costs more money. It should be clearly understood that the program I have talked about does not contemplate any large increase in the work program, out of this $110,000,000. I would like to call attention to one thing I consider an urgent necessity. When we discontinued the Civil Works Administration we had a good many white-collared people employed. These white-collared people in the main are not on the relief rolls. While more than half of the people under the Civil Works Administration were from the relief rolls, I would say that perhaps only about 10 percent of the white-collared people in the Civil Works Administration were from the relief rolls. I consider it urgently important to at once give approximately 100,000 whitecollared people benefit by means of work, such as engineers, architects, draftsmen, and so forth. Senator DICKINSON. Is it your contention that these people who seek work do actually need work for the purpose of sustenance, but do find a way by which they can stay off the relief rolls? Mr. HOPKINS. Yes. Many of them will not come to get relief. What happens to them is another story, and it is a pretty pathetic story. I think it is all to their credit that they do not ask for direct relief, but the suffering that goes on among those families is considerable. I believe I can prove to anyone that we can find very easily-I say find; we have them knocking at our door-100,000 white-collared people who really need some relief and need it desperately, and who are seeking it by means of work. I would like to give 100,000 people in the industrial cities that benefit. That will cost something, because those families are families that have a high standard of living. Even on a relief basis it will cost $16 or $17 a week, including rent. Those people pay an average rental of $25 to $40 a month. The trouble with a good many of us is that when we get to thinking of benefits, $16 a week seems very high; but when you think of $16 a week for a man and wife and two children, paying from $25 to $40 rent, it is a very small amount. That is one factor in this. Senator DICKINSON. Would these white-collared people be allowed to take outside work? Mr. HOPKINS. Their benefits should be small enough to encourage them to do so. Senator BYRNES. Your statement a few minutes ago appealed to me, in regard to the character of projects upon which people are working. The taxpayers seeing the so-called "white collared" fellow working on a project that is useless, that is not necessary, or seeing |