When the Indianapolis City Council passed a memorial in support of LaRouche's Homeowners and Banks Protection Act, one of the arguments in opposition to the resolution was that "this is something that shouldn't even be in front of us. This is a Federal issue…This is not something germane to this council." This is an example of the most common of excuses for political impotence encountered when organizing the city and county levels. Only an "End of History" Boomer, however, would actually believe it a valid argument. During the Great Depression, under President Hoover, when states and cities were becoming bankrupt handling relief, there were calls from all levels of government and institutions to demand Federal action.
The following is an excerpt from {Spending to Save}, written in 1936 by Harry L. Hopkins, relief administrator for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, as well as for the Civilian Works Administration (CWA) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) under President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
"The demands throughout the country and in Congress for direct Federal financial aid were growing more persistent during the summer of 1931. William Randolph Hearst, through his newspapers, advocated $5,000,000,000 Prosperity Loan to provide work relief for the millions of the unemployed. This plan was endorsed in resolutions sent to President Hoover by labor unions and municipalities in various parts of the country. These resolutions urged President Hoover to call a special session of Congress for the purpose of taking action on this $5,000,000,000 Prosperity Loan. On July 29, 1931, for instance, the Mayor's Unemployment Committee of Detroit, Michigan, sent to President Hoover a petition which began:
"The present situation of depression and unemployment has created an abnormal condition in our country, amounting in effect to a crisis and a national calamity, resulting in real want, privation and even destitution for many of our people and the inevitable destruction of the moral, mental and physical condition of those affected."
After pointing out that the City of Detroit had expended large sums of money for the relief of its unemployed, this petition added:
"The imminence of another winter of unprecedented deprivation through unemployment finds Detroit as determined as ever that no man, woman or child shall lack the elemental needs of food, clothing and shelter, but also finds the City less able than before to provide these necessities."
The petition went on to point out "that 19 per cent of the recipients of welfare aid were last employed by firms situated outside the geographical limits of the taxing power of the City of Detroit." It added that the total budget of the Detroit Community Fund, $3,600,000, was less than the expenditures made for unemployment relief by the City of Detroit during the months of February and March, 1931, alone. The petition also states:
"Cities are limited to the conditions imposed by law in their particular States, particularly by laws governing bonding power and taxes. It is logical and necessary that the Federal Government assume leadership and organize the whole problem in order to have it centralized."
The Central Labor Union of Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Blair County Central Labor Union of Altoona, Pennsylvania, the City Council of Seattle, Washington, the New York State Federation of Labor and the City of Columbus, Ohio, endorsed the movement for Federal aid. The resolution of the City of Columbus, Ohio, dated September 15, 1931, stated:
"WHEREAS, a depression of unprecedented severity prevails and whereas winter is near and whereas at least 8,000,000 are out of employment and without means of support and are on the verge of starvation and whereas this country is threatened with pestilence, disease, crimes, riots, and political turmoil unless the needy are cared," the resolution requested that President Hoover call a special session of Congress to pass an act authorizing the issuing of $500,000,000 worth of United States bonds "to provide, food, clothing, fuel and shelter for the needy." The League for Independent Political Action asked President Hoover in a letter of September 4, 1931, to call a special session of Congress and ask for an appropriation of $3,000,000,000 for work relief.
During August and September, 1931, while these demands and petitions were coming into the White House from widely separated parts of the nation, President Hoover and Walter S. Gifford [appointed Chairman of the President's Organization on Unemployment Relief in August, 1931] continued to insist on the necessity for local relief along for the unemployed. To bolster up this attitude President Hoover asked for opinions from the governors of some of the states. Governor Wilber M. Brucker, of Michigan, telegraphed President Hoover on August 21, 1931, and stated in his telegram: "The people of Michigan will take care of their own problem." A month before the Mayor's Unemployment Committee of Detroit had petitioned President Hoover and had pointed out that the people of Michigan could not take care of their own problem.
