“They set up this CWA very hurriedly. There was no means test. Any guy could just walk into the county office—they were set up all over the country—and get a job. Leaf raking, cleaning up libraries, painting the town hall … Within a period of sixty days, four million people were put to work.
“There was no real scandal in this thing, but it lent itself to all the reactionary criticisms that it couldn’t be well-managed. With our mores, you just can’t dump $20,000 into a county in the Ozarks and say: put people to work. That’s contrary to everything our political establishment was brought up to believe.
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This lasted only six months. Roosevelt and Hopkins had to end it. They weren’t able to get Congressional support to continue.
“Roosevelt won another appropriation—three billion—through an omnibus bill. This brought on another ruckus. Ickes thought it should go for public works: Grand Coulee Dam, Bonneville, projects of this type. They’re slow to get under way—wonderful, but they take time. Hopkins thought people should be put to work immediately, even though it might not be done very efficiently.”
Among the agencies created was the Resettlement Administration. It was independent of the Department of Agriculture, with Rex Tugwell as head, reporting directly to the President. This was a unique agency and, for that time, fantastic. It was Rex who largely drafted the Executive Order. It had to do with the plight of the small farmer and the migrant worker.
“
I was in it from the beginning. Rex brought me in to run the administrative end of it. When he’d delegate authority to someone he trusted, he’d back ‘em to the hilt. There were all sorts of bureaucratic battles, but Rex would have nothing to do with ’em. He gave me just absolutely marvelous backing.”
Harry Hopkins had established the Rural Rehabilitation Division. It had something to do with urban unemployment. One of the answers was sending people back to the farm, even though they had no farm experience. Tugwell objected and he was absolutely right. Farming requires a good deal of skill. These people just would have been lost.
Hopkins recognized it as a mistake fairly early—that this thing ought to be more closely tied to agriculture. So he agreed to transfer the operation to the Resettlement Administration.
“With a paltry $5 million appropriation, the Subsistence Homestead Division was established. A lot of Utopians dreamed of this for years: setting up rural industrial communities. This was given to Ickes originally, but he never had much empathy for Utopians.
(
Laughs
.
) All sorts of the craziest ideas came out on how to spend this money. Ickes was glad to get rid of this, so he transferred it to us. Generally, Ickes liked to handle everything, but this was one he wanted out of.”
(
Laughs.
)
He describes a project in Hightstown (now called Roosevelt), New Jersey. A group of Jewish ladies’ garment workers moved from New York City to this rural community. “The enthusiasm was terrific.” It was a cooperative, some working on the farm, others in the garment plant. “They had a hell of a good first year, but you take people out of a highly competitive situation and try to set up a Utopian society, you’re gonna have some difficulty.
(
Laughs.
)
“Mrs. Roosevelt tried to get Dubinsky interested,
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but he didn’t like this co-op nonsense. The garment industry was against it, too. They called it a Socialistic, Communist project. Anyway, it failed.”
The Rural Rehabilitation had to do with buying sub-marginal land. To retire it from cultivation, reforest it and convert it into a state park. Much of the land we were authorized to buy was in the Great Plains area, dam-aged
by dust storms. Tugwell’s idea was: These people should be moved to better land, not just kicked off bad land.
This is what Rex and I were most interested in. There were about six million farmers in the country. I think we helped over a sixth of the farm families. A million farms. The most exciting part was the resettlement projects.
Tugwell had a passion for the adjustment of people to the land. But being a good economist, he foresaw what was gonna happen to small farmers, who just couldn’t meet the competition. So we set up a certain number of co-op farms, about a hundred of ’em around the country. About twenty thousand families. Everett Dirksen later described it as Russian collectivism. (Laughs.) We were trying to work out cooperatives, where farmers would have their houses grouped, as a matter of convenience. We varied the pattern from place to place—nursery schools for their kids, central markets for their products…. Maybe it was Utopian, but I don’t think so.
I’ll just tell you about one of ’em. We bought this beautiful delta land in Arkansas for about $100 an acre. It’s worth about $700 now. We set up this little community of five or six thousand acres. We brought in about fifty young families.
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A carefully selected group of young families….
We built these houses, put in a school, nursery … they had individual garden plots. It was diversified land—livestock, cotton, fruits, vegetables. They were paid so much a month, and at the end of the year, when the crops were in, they’d divide the profits. It had been operating about two years. They were doin’ pretty well….
Will Alexander spent several days on the project visiting with these families. He’d talk to them in the evening, when they were relaxed. They’d say, “Dr. Alexander, this is wonderful. You know, if we’re able to stay here four, five years, we’ll be able to go out on our own farm.”
It came to us as sort of a shock. See, this hunger for land ownership … Although they were happy and more secure than they’d ever been in their lives, they were lookin’ forward to gettin’ out and ownin’ their own land. You have to reckon with this kind of thing.
These projects were all stopped cold, after the death of Roosevelt, all liquidated. Congress saw to it. It’s one of the really sad things. They had all sorts of problems, sure—but this certainly would have been an important answer to poverty, as we see it now. Over half the farm families have disappeared. They are contributing to the ghetto problems of the city, black and white.
Almost everything we did became controversial. Hopkins had built a
couple of migratory labor camps in California. They were also transferred to us. They were very simple camps—well, Grapes of Wrath tells you about them better than I could.
“I got a call from John Steinbeck. He wanted some help. He was planning to write this book on migrant workers. Will Alexander and I were delighted. He said, ‘I’m writing about people and I have to live as they live.’ He planned to go to work for seven, eight weeks as a pea picker or whatever. He asked us to assign someone to go along with him, a migrant worker. We chose a little guy named Collins, out of Virginia.
“I paid Collins’ salary, which was perhaps illegal. He and Steinbeck worked in the fields together for seven or eight weeks. Steinbeck did a very nice thing. He insisted Collins be technical director of the film, this little migrant worker. And he got screen credit… .”
At these camps, the people ran their own affairs. We had our project manager there to help them.
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This became the most controversial thing we ever did. Before we’d build a camp, we’d hold a public hearing. There was a lot of opposition, particularly from groups like the Associated Farmers.
I was on the stand during one of these hearings. A Congressman, Al Elliott of California, was cross-questioning me. I had all the information, photographs—the plight of migrant workers. He argued against the camp. The real reason the big farmers didn’t want them built is that they were places where the migrants might get together and organize. Think of this guy, Chavez, today—things have changed so little in thirty years, it makes you sick to think of it.
When Elliott finished his slambang cross-examination, I said, “You haven’t convinced me not to build the camp. I’m issuing instructions for it to be started.” He stormed across the room. He was a heavyweight boxer, about six-three, weighing about 210. I weighed in at 155. (Laughs.) He hollered, “You don’t represent the people of my district! I represent them!” I said, “I have a national constituency. And a very important part of that are the migrant workers of this big country. I’m telling you again, Congressman Elliott, I’m gonna build this camp.” We built it. (Laughs.)
Oh, the battles we had! There were any number of people in Congress who made a career out of it. Senator Byrd of Virginia—my own Senator —he was really out to destroy us.
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He introduced legislation to abolish the agency.
The Farm Bureau, representing the big farmers, sent a very inexperienced
kid into the South to investigate what we were doing. He came back with all sorts of fantastic charges. All of which had been published. I had to answer. I was called on the carpet by Byrd’s committee.
There was one thing I had authorized that almost tripped me up. I advised our field workers and county supervisors to include in the rehabilitation loans enough to pay the poll taxes of individuals who couldn’t vote.
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Byrd thought he had me on this one.
He said: “You are using federal money to pay the poll taxes of people in the South, is that true?” I said, “No, it isn’t true.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “We make loans to people. Small farmers who can’t get credit elsewhere. We make these loans for a variety of reasons. Number one, to buy their seed. Number two, to assure them enough to eat till their crop comes in. Number three, to buy the necessary equipment. Then we have to make sufficient allowance so the kids can at least have decent clothes. And—I have told our supervisors—if these people can register and vote, we should include in the loan enough to pay their poll tax … so, Senator, they can become citizens of the United States.”
Carter Glass, the senior Senator from my state, said I was violating the Virginia Constitution: nobody could pay anybody else’s poll tax. I said: “We’re not paying them; we’re just lending them money as part of a complete operation.”
I thought I came out fairly well on it. I was due to go back two days later. The next morning I picked up the Washington Post, and here’s a front page story: “Baldwin Criticized by Roosevelt for Paying Poll Taxes.” Jesus. I knew something had gone wrong. Roosevelt was opposed to the poll tax.
But I knew a guy who was interested in the poll tax question and had entrée to the White House. I said, “Go see Steve Early
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and get this message to the President. He’s completely misunderstanding what we’re doing.” He rushed down.
I was back on the stand. And, boy, Byrd was just beamin’! He had me locked. He started out: “Mr. Baldwin, I have a story in the Washington Post of yesterday morning saying Roosevelt is opposed to the things you are doing, paying poll taxes.” In the meantime, I’m filibustering—took forty minutes with another statement—hoping that guy would show up from the White House. I knew the President was calling a press conference at ten-thirty. I heard a rustle in the back of the room—the place was jammed. This was the hottest story in town. The guy rushed up with a little sheet of paper and handed it to me.
Byrd was really at it now—the President had criticized me and said that I must desist from this activity at once. So I cleared my throat (laughs),
and I said: “Senator Byrd, I’ve just been advised that the President in his press conference, only thirty minutes ago, completely supported my position on poll taxes.” Well, my Senator from Virginia was the most miserable looking character you’ve ever seen. (Laughs.)
Oh, the harassment was constant. It was a colossal job, reorganizing the Resettlement Administration, getting all the agencies to mesh and run smoothly. I had a good staff. But I also knew, in order to save it, we had to have a pretty good people’s lobby.
We were under fire in Alabama. Senator Bankhead, Tallulah’s uncle, was pretty conservative, but he liked the agency and was quite friendly. He said, “We’re in real trouble in Alabama. I’ve got fifteen letters, all my supporters, sayin’ the Farm Security Administration should be abolished. Important men.” He looked at me and sort of smiled: “Beanie, what are you gonna do about it?” I said, “Give me two days.”
I called our regional director in Alabama and asked him to get all the county supervisors to call all their political friends and get some letters to Senator Bankhead. And I said, “I think you ought to get in at least three thousand letters. Have most of ‘em written in pencil. It don’t matter what they say, just from the people that we’re helpin’ ’em.”
About ten days went by and Senator Bankhead called me. (Laughs.) He had a little stack of letters, about so high, in opposition. And stacks of letters about this high. (Laughs.) He said, “For God’s sake, stop these letters. We’re safe.” (Laughs.)
Under Baldwin’s administration of the FSA, photographers were employed to take pictures, showing the plight of the rural poor. Among the people involved were Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn and Margaret Bourke-White. “I had to cover up a lot of this—even though we were payin’ ’em peanuts—because you know what a reactionary Congressman would say: ‘Here are these bastards wasting my money. Why are they sending people out to take photographs.’
“We ended up with over a hundred thousand of these photographs. Along about 1940, I had become the most controversial person in the Department of Agriculture. Congress was after me. Because of these projects and because I was a protégé of Tugwell. I knew we weren’t going to get by much longer. The only thing we wanted to do was to save these negatives… .
“Roy Stryker
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got in touch with Archibald MacLeish, who understood the importance of this. He agreed. So we moved all the films quietly into a safe storage space. When MacLeish became Librarian of Congress, we were able to get them in there, where they will always be.