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¶ Appointed Henry Matson Waite, one-time city manager of Dayton (Ohio), to be Deputy Administrator of Public Works. Engineer Waite served as a colonel with the A. E. F. railroads. He just finished building Cincinnati's $40,000,000 Union Terminal. He will constitute Mr. Ickes' brain trust on "the high price of putty and the low price of sand." ¶ Sifted and sorted 1,300 projects submitted by cities and States. Federal agencies also stacked his desks with work proposals totalling $500,000,000. From outside sources construction ideas poured into his office at the rate of 400 telegrams per day.
After he had weeded and culled the construction list for hours and days, Secretary Ickes carried it to the White House. ''Still too big!" declared the President, so together they weeded and culled some more. To get on last week's list a project had to: 1) benefit a community permanently and socially; 2) be ready to start immediately; 3) be finished within one year; 4) save the Federal Treasury from recurring expenses for upkeep and repair.
Million by October. Only when all these conditions were met did President Roosevelt approve and Secretary Ickes proudly declare: "This distribution is the first in the program of giving men work so that 1,000,000 may be employed by October 1!"
Already set aside toward providing that employment was $400,000,000 for new highways. Last week New York was the first State to get its share ($22,000,000) upon approval of its road building map. Also earmarked was $238,000,000 for new naval construction. On July 26 the Navy will open bids for two aircraft carriers, two cruisers, 15 destroyers and two submarines on which $46,000,000 will be spent this year. City after city throughout the U. S. whipped a public building program of its own into shape for submission to Washington.
"No Inside Track!" Secretary Ickes was besieged by Senators & Representatives sniffing about for "pork" for their States and districts. Contractors trod on one another's toes to get into the Interior Department building and press their claims. "Fixers" flitted hither & yon in an effort to obtain this or that job for "clients." Weeks ago Maryland's Governor Ritchie officially assigned a man to Washington to see that his State got all that was coming to it in the way of public works money. So thick became the press in his office that Secretary Ickes was last week moved to exclaim:
"There's no inside track to a public works contract! Since the enactment of the law there has sprung up in Washington a corps of self-styled 'experts,' 'agents' and 'advisers' who are attempting to get money from contractors in exchange for alleged inside information and influence. . . . They can deliver no such thing. I advise contractors to give the Government the benefit of low bids, made possible by not wasting their money on such 'specialists.' Contracts will be awarded to those able to do the best jobs for the least money in an honest way."