RELIEF: Woe in the Wilderness

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The Government had promised concrete foundations and basements for the cabins, but foundation timbers were being laid flat on the mud.

The Government had promised a fine, 18-teacher school for September, but building had not even begun. A carload of school desks had arrived, however.

Last week 31 of the 400 transient relief workers who went up last April for a six-month stretch of ground-clearing arrived back in Seattle, reported that 178 of their fellows were ready to quit, too. Said one: "Three women colonists begged me to give them my identification tag, so that they could clip their hair, put on men's clothes and get back to the States. They wanted to get back here and work to send their families enough money to break away, too."

Meantime hardworking Colony Manager Don L. Irwin paused only to bark of the colonists' complaints: "Greatly exaggerated." Said a Matanuska sawmill foreman : "Too many colonists are doing too much sitting and fishing."

In Washington, Assistant Administrator Westbrook snapped: "The colonists are much better off already than they were in the Northwest." But on motion of Senators Vandenberg, La Follette and Shipstead, the Senate demanded a full report on colony conditions from Administrator Hopkins, who had dispatched a personal representative to the scene. Already the colonists had won two points: Government commissary prices had been scaled down; Supervising Architect N. Lester Troast had been withdrawn from the project because of "press of business."

Impartial observers last week rated the whole Alaska project as at the very least a first-rate all-around education. Colonists were learning that a Government is human and fallible as any father who impulsively promises more than he can deliver. New Dealers were learning that grown men treated like children may be expected to behave like children.