In its two-and-a-half years as the New Deal's chief weapon against unemployment, the Works Progress Administration has been the delight of cartoonists and paragraphers. The ubiquitous WPA signs, signifying men & women at work building bridges, painting murals, reciting Bernard Shaw or planting oysters—all under the direction of Washington— seemed to the rugged individualists to be a vaguely comic extracurricular activity of the Federal Government.
Last week when President Roosevelt signed away $250,000,000 more for relief, WPA had become just about the grimmest thing in the country. The new appropriation will be spent...
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