A Labor Inspector during the Great Depression BY BARNEY L. FLANAGAN
W H E N YOU GO T O A ROAD WORKER WHO IS SWINGING along, whistling blithely while toting a ninety-six-pound bag of portland cement in each hand, and say to him, "Sorry, buddy, but you can't work here," you have to have a pretty good reason. When he tosses each bag onto a waist-high pile by the mere flip of his wrist and forearm, brushes off a pair of big strong hands, and says, "Who the hell says I can't?" you had better have an answer ready, and it had better be good. T h e American worker was never finer than he was in the dark days of the Great Depression when he asked for nothing more than parity with his fellow workers—no favors, no gravy—just parity. He showed clearly that he could take the bitter with the sweet in stride just as long as he felt that he was being treated no worse than the others. When the chips were down and the babies crying, the American worker grew rebellious only when he got the idea that he was being shown some form of unfair treatment. T h e big fellow who was tossing bags of cement around was typical. My job as inspector for the Utah State Highway Commission's hiring committee put me in touch and kept me in touch with hundreds of families who were destitute or nearly so. Homes without furniture—because the family could not keep up the p a y m e n t s were common. Beds consisting of blankets—sometimes a mattress— on the floor were not uncommon, and in more than one home the old-time wooden orange crate served as chair and table. The hiring committee was a product of the pre-New Deal effort to meet the economic crisis. In mid-1932 the Congress appropriated money for accelerated federal highway aid programs in an effort to alleviate distress in some areas at least. T o keep the road contractors from filling the work crews with friends and relatives, the regulations issued from Washington provided that all hiring must be done from lists supplied the contractor by a hiring committee. T h e work week was cut to thirty hours to spread the work a little further. Utah went Mr. Flanagan lives in Washington, D.C.
