Roosevelt Revises PWA Grant System New York Times ; 1936-07-21
Outright Gifts of Funds Hereafter Will Be Based on Number Taken Off Relief Rolls.
45% to Remain Maximum
New   Policy   Also   Will    Permit
Calling Needed Skilled Jobless
From Another City.
Special to  the New York Times.
Washington, Aug. 12.-Broad
revisions in the policy governing
Federal grants to municipalities to
assist in construction of public
works, under which the sole gauge
would be the actual number of persons removed from relief rolls, were
explained by President Roosevelt at
a press conference today.
The old rule under which loans of
55 per cent of the cost of projects
and grants covering the remaining
45 per cent were made by the Public Works Administration to approved projects has been discarded,
he made clear, except that 45 per
cent remains as the maximum limit
on gifts in the form of grants.
In his discussion of the PWA program the President announced a
broadening of rules to permit cities
to bring from other localities special craftsmen not on their relief
rolls.
Finally, he took issue with critics
of the administration in some localities who have complained that relief payments made it difficult for
private employers to obtain labor.
That difficulty, he contended,
usually arose from the unwillingness of contractors to pay fair subsistence wages on an American
standard. He termed this, in his
own words, the Ethiopian in the
woodpile.
Will Pay for Relief Labor
The discussion of the new PWA
policv arose from a question as to
how the administration proposed to
use some $300,000,000 earmarked
from the last relief appropriation
by Congress for such activities.
Mr. Roosevelt said that the gov-