Congress Urged to Build Communities for Migrant Millions
Congress Urged to Build Communities for Migrant Millions 3,000,000 Travel Roads Seeking Non-Existent Jobs Written exclusively for Hie New Leader by the congressional committee studying interstate...
...With several hundred a* demic theatres, many of them equipped to do work of professional quality, playwrights need not fear either physical or artistic starvation...
...By HERMAN KOBBE THE skyscrapers of the downtown district tower to fifty * stories and more above narrow canyon-like streets...
...It was the late Professor George Pierce Baker, fo Harvard and Yale, who helped to develop such writers as Edward Sheldon, Eugene O'Neill...
...More than that...
...There grew a feeling that-the people had reached the last frontier...
...These recommendations were backed up by facts, figures, by quotations from witnesses, by evidence from every available source...
...Instead of a few miles a day they traveled hundreds...
...There is now, however, a far more serious aspect to consider...
...Skyscraper Canyons Make New York Vulnerable to Damaging Air Raids Some weeks ago Mayor LaGuardia stated that plans were being made for the safety of every person in New York City in the event of air raids...
...b) for the non-agricultural migrants, and for those agricultural migratory workers who wish to gain residence and secure settlement rights which will enable them to stop, moving from state to state, the committee recommends the enactment of legislation to provide general relief under the • Social Security Act for non-settled persons with Federal grants-in-aid to those states which comply with a uniform settlement requirement...
...Forces of nature took a hand, certain sections were hit by extended drought, machines came to the farm, the landowner became 6.jandlord, the size Of farms increased in response to .the/demand for increasingly efficient farming, and the' use ;of the modern machine...
...The academic theatre is not a mushroom growth...
...The committee and its staff studied the evidence that had been presented, studied the statements-of its witnesses carefully, and considered the recommendations for alleviation or correction of the situation made to them by the witnesses in the various heaings...
...This is what the convention definitely proved...
...A large percentage of the offices are dark and require artificial light even in midsummer...
...This picture of "modern-day migration was presented to Anierica most- graphically in John Steinbeck's book "The Grapes of Wrath" and in the movie made from the book...
...WASHINGTON, D. C—The word "migration" has come to have a new meaning in the last year, because of the efforts to define that word in terms of today by a select committee created on April 22, 1940, by the House of Representatives...
...interested in the subject...
...The future of American playwrith||?hi declared, "is in the academic theatre...
...TPHE problem of the present-day and future American * playwright was posed at the convention by Thomas Job, author of the stage versions of "Barchester Towers" and "Giants in the Earth," and now teaching at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and by E. P. Conkle, author of "200 Were Choscen" and "Prologue to Glory," and now an instructor at the-University of Texas...
...What does the administration propose to do...
...They thus obtained ¦ first-hand information about the situation as it existed in various sections of the country from those who were best qualified to speak...
...Administrators of federal, state* and local agencies who had to deal with the various anglesA>f the problem appeared before the committee...
...It is unnatural that it should...
...Congress Urged to Build Communities for Migrant Millions 3,000,000 Travel Roads Seeking Non-Existent Jobs Written exclusively for Hie New Leader by the congressional committee studying interstate migration of destitute .citizens...
...In February and March, even before the life of the committee had been extended for this special study, further hearings were held dealing particularly with national defense migration,-because of the necessity that Congress should be apprised of the extent of this new movement and of the problems that it was bringing about and is still bringing about over the entire country...
...and in the most congested-streets, probably a smaller proportion...
...Nearly thirty years ago I pointed out in an •rtidf* the New York Times that the skyscrapers were a pofepiB'' danger in case of earthquake or any other emergen*!' PP would cause people to rush_ from the buildings in a k»W-Fortunately,-until new, New York earthquakes, though i&l frequent, have been relatively harmless affairs, so that danger from that source may be considered as only a kf" term risk, even though congestion of population has fraiw increased in thirty years...
...Today, these buildings are a problem and a potential menace...
...a fourth category of public assistance under the Social Security Act to provide general relief for non-settled persons...
...Everybody familiar with the district knows the inconvenience of overcrowded elevators and stairs during rush hours and, in fact, neither the elevators nor the stairs are designed to accommodate the whole population of the buildings at any one time...
...Out of these studies came first a preliminary report on January 3, 1941, and later a final report on the situation as it had developed up to the end of the hearings, in which report the committee made its recommendations to the Congress...
...and it is the academicians allow the country who are patiently guiding the fumblhlf felt steps of America's fledgling dramatists and theatre worker Broadway may be dark, but the American drama ferMf much alive...
...In April, 1940, the resolution passed and with him on the committee were appointed Representatives John J. Sparkman of.Alabama, Claude V. Parsons of Illinois, Carl T.,Curtis of Nebraska, and Frank C. Osmers of New Jersey...
...One theatre magazine estimates that there are 65,000 producing organizations in the United States...
...The earlier migrations were for the purpose of opening new lands, creating new communities and states, of making available to an ever-increasing population the resources of a nation stretching from coast to coast...
...Under the chairmanship of Congressman Tolan the committee held hearings in New York, Montgomery, Chicago, Lincoln, Oklahoma City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and then back in Washington for the wind-up...
...C. * * * 117HEN the final report was submitted to the House of " Representatives on April 3, 1941, a resolution was also introduced to extend the life of the committee until January 3, 1943, for the purpose of studying the new migration which the committee had found under way qver the entire country—a new migration brought about by the national defense program of the Federal government...
...Herman Kobbe, prominent architect and author of the recently published "Housing and Regional Planning," addresses some pertinent remarks on this problem to the city authorities...
...Not only was this true of the far West, but it was true also of hundreds of sections from coast to coast where these migrant laborers had gone seeking work either on the farm or in the plant, ; the mill, or the miner All too often they found no work...
...The hearings of the committee have been printed in 11 volumes, 10 of which aro now available for distribution, and these hearings constitute the source book for persons interested in the subject, whether they be public administrators,- college professors, students, or social welfare workers...
...Their design is fundamentally faulty for the*" reasons mentioned: first, necessarily dark rooms...
...the committee wishes it understood that H particularly views the extension of government camps at a model for private camps and a means for setting nev standards locally...
...The average Broadway producer," he said, - "before he has finished reading the first act of a script, ' thinks, *How can I change this'?' Even an established playwright like Maxwell Anderson has had the second and third acts of his 'Saturday's Children' transposed in production...
...Robert Porterfield of the Barter .Theatre of Virginia, stood up at the convention to accuse the professors of spoiling their students...
...It seems to me that the only sensible thing to do if ai evacuate about three-quarters of the persons working ia tat skyscraper sections before any raid is likely to takf |lat* then to instruct the remaining one-quarter what to do a* I building in their neighborhood is hit...
...The pattern of American farming changed...
...But their existence is an indication of the need, of the hunger for legitimate theatre which the country manages thus to express...
...the same time the committee recommends increasing the number of new clients whith the program can take care of each fiscal year...
...During Colonial days and early years of the establishment of the new republic, migration went slowly...
...They also had as witnesses dozens of those persons—men, women, and children who had been caught in the whirlpool of this great movement—who had been "on the road" and had encountered all the vicissitudes and deprivations of those who had become dependent on such -occasional employment as they could find in their travels...
...What is dying is the unnatural commercial institution known as "Broadway...
...Scientists, college professors, social workers and others who had made intensive studies of the • situation -brought their findings, some of which revealed that as many as 3,000,000 persons were on the road...
...Since the sides are mostly of glass, and light construction, it is almost a foregone conclusion that the inside of the building will be very badly damaged, highly probable that the elevator service will be interrupted, and that fti lights and the sprinkler system will be j»ut out of a» mission...
...But about-ten years-ago conditions began to change, industry stagnated, the market of the American farmer was lessened from year to year...
...If these suggestions are considered impracticable, I wnM be very much interested to hear what the safety engtaaW propose as a more practicable plan for safeguarding th« lives of the office workers in the congested downtown diatll* » • • 'THE skyscrapers were built with the motive of profla^e' * with little regard for the health or safety of the workers...
...hoatj--r and sanitation for migratory, agricultural workers byi limited extension in the areas where they already exist of the Farm Security Administration camps for vmgrienH^j migrants, and the establishment of new camps in area* where great increases in use of agricultural migratory laborM recently begun...
...The outlook for Ame-ican playwriting is bright again...
...If the American people are to have a healthy theatre it can no longer depend upon the small group of New York producers and their financial "angels...
...were proud of these everyday "migrants"—from whatever country they or their parents had come, they typified America constantly growing, constantly proceeding out into new fields, subduing the forest, conquering nature...
...3. To care for migrant families who are trying to gtt% new start and for whom a return to their point of origin u not a feasible solution, the committee recommends: (a) For the agricultural migrant an opportunity to return to independent farming, to the limit of the ¦ facilities now available, either on a reclamation project now openinr up or under the Bankhead-Jones tenant purchase prograa, and under improved methods other than the Bankhead-Jonti Act which may become available for assisting worthy, tad qualified farmers to acquire and own a farm...
...Other methods of telling America what was going on were made available...
...If all the persons in a skyscraper were to go downstairs in an orderly fashion and on a nee-determined schedule, it is possible that they might all be able to leave the building let us say in six, eight or ten times the length of time that it would take a single person to walk down from the highest floor...
...It will be seen that the membership was drawn from widely separated parts of the country...
...The truck and the tractor took.the place of the old horse and mule, the hired hand of early days became a day laborer, employed only when work was necessary...
...After the Civil War it continued in an ever-increasing volume as more and more immigrants came to the New World...
...The late Federal Theatre was a similar indication...
...Since Broadway has gone bankrupt many of its workers have found in our college and university drama departments and theatre workshops regular employment and the opportunity for experimentation and artistic growth...
...They called into these hearings as witnesses persons whom they thought especially qualified...
...Yet during part of the same Christmas week, and running into the new year, a convention of theatre people was held in Washington, a quiet, unpublicized convention, but one marked by enthusiasm and optimism for the future of our national theatre...
...We began to realize that America faced a new problem...
...65,000 "Hinterland" Producers Keep American Drama Alive As Broadway's Seasons Show Dying Theatre By bryllion fagin (Professor of English at Johns Hopkins University) APROVINCIAL—such as this Baltimorean—going to New York during the Christmas week of the late but un-lamented 1940 found singularly little theatrical fare to attract his attention...
...2. To care for potential migrants in agriculturs, the committee recommends: :» (a) The extension of the activities of the Farm Security Administration on behalf of low-income farm families fey s reduction of the case load for loan supervisors from the present figures of 189 to at most 125 clients per supervisor...
...Producers, critics, and sociologists have noted the trend and discussed its probable causes...
...Much of the evidence at the December hearings before the committee in Washington dealt with the various aspects of this migration...
...There has been- a steady decline in the number of theatres kept open on Broadway...
...It is now, in most cases, a professional non-professional theatre...
...We...
...they pushed across the moutains into California, Oregon, and Washington...
...The membership consists of three Democrats and two Republicans who, working together harmoniously, have made this a fact-finding investigation—an investigation fundamentally objective in its viewpoint...
...Sidney Howard, and Philip Btatr it was Professor Frederick Koch, of North Carolina, wjtfj» couraged Paul Green...
...They can afford to stage plays that would scare a Broadway producer but that are nevertheless masterpieces of dramatic writing...
...set** necessarily inadequate means of egress...
...Representatives from some 200 colleges and universities, heads of drama departments, directors of experimental theatres, teachers of playwriting, met for four days to discuss the activities and problems of the academic theatre, and came away with the positive knowledge that the American theatre is very much alive...
...Now we are confronted by the much more imiaa** danger of raids, and so far no precautionary steps kt* been made public...
...America has always been a moving nation...
...For over a year an unpublicized Board of Disaster Control has been working in a tower room of the' Municipal Building surveying subways, charting shelters, collecting data on skyscrapers and cellars, preparing for any emergency...
...TPHE report deals extensively with both agricultural and * non-agricultural migration...
...IN 1940...
...It is almost additionally certain that the impel* of the survivors of the explosion in all buildingt of tfe immediate neighborhood will be to get downstairs and of the buildings as quickly as possible...
...The Okies and the Arkies from the Great Plains became the new pioneers, but their methods of travel had changed...
...DUT the old American spirit of independence, of looking for a better opportunity, of "hunting a better job" was still alive, and from the cotton farms of the South, from the mountain homes of the Appalachian region, from the drought-stricken Great Plains area, from the cities, and factories, from all parts of America, these victims of a condition over which they had no control went forth, often without definite objectives, but in the search of a better chance to make a living...
...This committee began hearings at various strategic points to learn as much as possible about the problem they were investigating...
...The report of the committee is available to persons who are...
...The establishment of...
...If a silhouette were made of the downtown district, showing the tall buildings and the narrow streets in their correct proportions, and if a parabolic curve were then drawn from a point in the air above the buildings down to the ground, it would be seen that the curve (and a bomb) would more likely hit the long side of a building than either the restricted area of the roof or of the street...
...The competition of the motion pictures, the high rentals of theatres in the Times Square district, the unreasonableness of the stage crafts unions, the dearth of good scripts—all these have been blamed for the existing situation...
...tThe depression years took their toll of American life— and among those hardest hit were those who could least resist—the day laborer on the farm and in the plant became the pawn of adverse fate...
...But even these poor ones have behind them a permanent organization, the college, and the support of an intelligent and stable community...
...To support Mr...
...Chairman of the committee is Rep...
...it should not be confused with the extension of existing social-security aid to groups not now covered by the present three categories...
...Dead already, pessimists say...
...The committee heard tesjjmony from the large insurance companies that they have'^>0 farmers per supervisor...
...Who or what is really to blame is not so important, just now, as the obvious fact that the American theatre is verjjf sick, perhaps dying...
...I have had some of your graduates," he said, "who couldn't understand me wheij I asked them to pick up some bent nails to be straightened out and used again...
...Several musicals were doing a good business, but the serious or even semi-serious drama was nowhere to be seen...
...The lower the altitude of the starting point, the more likely a hit against the side of a building...
...as in 1939, Congressman John H. Tolan of Cali-' ,fornia introduced a resolution into the House of Representatives authorizing the creation of this Select Committee (to Investigate the interstate migration of destitute citizens...
...From the settlements along the seaboard back to the foothills of the Appalachians, then over the mountains into the plains of the central part of our country, westward and further westward the pioneers went...
...Job was vehement in his denunciation of the Broadway producers who are given . to mutilating the plays they finally consent to permit the 3 public to see...
...I have not sufficient data to know the likelihood of New York being an air-raid target if or when America finds herself in the war...
...This is not news to anyone who has followed the fate of the American .theatre in recent years...
...IT is now a quarter of a century since the American people * have gone in for making their own theatre...
...The glory that once was Broadway seemed to have departed indeed...
...Through movies and books, the skyscrapers which weigh down the tiny island of Manhattan from the Battery to Rockefeller Center have become the familiar identification tog of New York...
...They are being distributed widely to universities-and public libraries and to organizations and individuals who have demonstrated an interest in the subject...
...A few dollars worth of gasoline would carry him across the state, with his family and with his belongings packed in the old family car...
...Since the founding of the first colonies on the Atlantic Seaboard...
...The final report is a volume of 741 pages...
...EVEN those who paused along the seaboard in the great cities and manufacturing areas soon began to look westward and' the Great Plains of the Mississippi Valley filled up...
...At best, this is a condition detrimental to the health of the thousands of 6ffice workers...
...But since home defense measures are being spoken of, I call attention to the Skyscraper situation, for the purpose of getting from the city administration a clear statement of what they propose to do...
...and the first years of the 17th century—even earlier settlements in the South and Southwest might be pointed to as well— the people of this country have been free to move...
...Hit vwt answer was clear...
...Then came the period of more intensive settlement, the building^ of great cities all over the country, an increase in importance of manufacturing,' the intensification of farm processes,-thi growth of a great country...
...For the next yeaf and a balf the committee will go on with its investigations especially of the problems created by the national defense program and possible solutions for the questions that will necessarily arise during the program and at such time as the program will be discontinued or altered...
...Similar reporti i production schedules which include many new scripts Nil made by representatives from Catholic University, Nat Carolina, Northwestern, Cornell, etc...
...Even if the population of these high buildings were to reach the exit doors and attempt to get out into the streets all at once, the area of the streets would be only enough to accommodate about one-third of the people...
...New York is still the commercial .center of the United States, but culturally it fails to meet the needs of America's scattered millions of people...
...No single city can permanently be the cultural center of an expanding, growing country, y Boston was once such a center, and little...
...In fact, a professional, Mr...
...The automobile had put America on wheels, and this was true of the farmer who had gone broke on the Great Plains, because even within his reach had come the jalopy...
...b) Continued improvement of the standards of...
...an of California...
...They have a chance of knowing and therefore meeting the needs and tastes of their patrons...
...The recommendations of the committee as summarized in the report are as follows: m 1. 7*0 care for migrants while they are pursuing jobs, either in agriculture or in industry, the following measures .are ^required: . (a) Legislation to regulate the activities ^-Jjjfangji labor contractors...
...They have been spoiled by working with a million dollars' worth of equipment...
...it was New York University MB produced the Washington Square Players, who in time lie-came the Theatre Guild...
...It is directed and staffed by well-trained and experienced playwrights, directors, actors, stage designers, and lighting men...
...If there should be a panic, however, and all tried to use the elevators and stairs at once, a highly dangerous panic situation would be created...
...Instead of the ox-cart of the early days they had the automobile...
...The committee as at present constituted consists of four of the five original members...
...Many are as poor as the straw-hat theatres...
...It is true that most of these operate one a shoestring and that their productions are amateurish in every way...
...A: BOMB dropped from a horizontally moving airplane ** does not fall in a straight line but follows the curve of a parabola...
...He pointed out that only 59 new plays were produced in New York last year and predicted that five years hence but 25 new plays will find producers, and that will be considered a good season...
...Concord, and Philadelphia, and even Charleston and Baltimore once showed great promise, but economic shifts have determined otherwise...
...Some university theatres are magnificently equipped...
...This last measure will be described in detail under the committee's recommendation for assisting migrants to get a new start...
...In the place of Claude V. Parsons of Illinois, who is now First Assistant Administrator of the United States Housing Administration, Laurence F. Arnold of Illinois was appointed...
...Germans, Irish, English, Welsh, Scotch, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Italians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Poles—in ever-increasing numbers they arrived...
...J TheTacific Coast States with their great fruit and vegetable ranches and with their widespread need of temporary labor became aroused to the fact that there was an over-supply of this class of labor—that they were often called upon to feed and care for this over-supply...
...Heffner's statement Professor Edward C. Mabie, of the University of Iowa, reported that hit theatre is this year producing six new plays...
...Other books and movies followed...
...Again the main trend was westward...
...And seemingly it doesn't...
...They are, in fact, at this time, the one theatre institution dedicated to keeping dramatic tradition unbroken, to the transmitting to the present generation of the best that has been thought and said in drama in the past, and to the encouragement of dramatic expression in the future...
...It is no longer even amateur...
...Where, then, is the new American playwright to gain the necessary training and experience...
...A graver aspect of the playwright's problem was presented by Professor Hubert Heffner of Stanford University...
...They were of the pioneer blood of America and they were America in action...
...The entire country is dotted with little theatres, summer theatres, dramatic clubs and societies...
...they were stranded, their families were hungry, they had no money to buy gasoline to go further...
...This was the annual convention of the American Educational Theatre Association...
...Not many colleges offer their drama students a million dollars' worth of equipment...
...If this provincial happened to be interested in drama, and if he had already seen the few perennials, such as "Tobacco Road" and "Life With Father," there was nothing for him to do except perhaps visit the cinema...
...b) The continuance and extension at as rapid a rate as feasible off water conservation and pump irrigation wmt under the Wheeler-Case program, the water facilities pro. gram and the provision of public aid in construction of reclamation projects...
...Certain cultural historians are even now engaged in the writing of suitable epitaphs...
...Requests should be sent to the committee in the House Office Building, Washington,~D...
Vol. 24 • May 1941 • No. 21
