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N0KFQ > TODAY 08.04.15 16:59l 52 Lines 2307 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Apr 8
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<JH4XSY<JM1YTR<JE7YGF<7M3TJZ<HG8LXL<N0KFQ
Sent: 150408/1454Z 52423@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.63
1935
FDR signs Emergency Relief Appropriation Act
President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorizes almost $5 million to
implement work-relief programs on this day in 1935. Hoping to
lift the country out of the crippling Great Depression, Congress
allowed the president to use the funds at his discretion. The act
was unprecedented and remains the largest system of
public-assistance relief programs in the nation's history.
One of the most notable federal agencies FDR created with the
Emergency Relief Appropriation Act was the Works Progress
Administration, one of several New Deal programs FDR hoped would
relieve the chronic and widespread unemployment citizens faced
during the Depression. While FDR believed in the elementary
principles of justice and fairness, he also expressed disdain for
doling out welfare to able workers. The WPA, the Public Works
Administration (PWA) and other federal-assistance programs
created by the act put Americans to work in return for temporary
financial assistance. To prevent the act from harming private
enterprise, Roosevelt included a provision that prohibited
federal programs from competing with independent businesses by
placing wage and price controls on federally funded products and
services.
Workers with the WPA built highways, schools, hospitals, airports
and playgrounds. They even restored theaters, such as the Dock
Street Theater in Charleston, South Carolina, and built the ski
lodge at Oregon's Mt. Hood. The WPA also put actors, writers and
other creative-arts professionals back to work by sponsoring
federally funded plays and art projects. For its part, the PWA
funded the construction of New York's Triborough Bridge and the
Lincoln Tunnel, as well as the port at Brownsville, Texas.
From 1935, FDR lobbied Congress annually to continue funding the
ERA Act. In total, the act allocated approximately $880 million
in federal funds and created millions of jobs, although
historians disagree about the long-term value of most of the
WPA's projects. In 1940, the economy roared back to life with the
surge in defense-industry production and, in 1943, Congress
suspended many of the programs under the ERA Act, including the
WPA and the PWA.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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