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Though the new code pleased most of Newburgh, it angered the State Board of Social Welfare, which reimburses Newburgh for 33% of its relief costs. A special investigating committee protested that at least two provisions—the three-month cutoff, and the discrimination against unwed mothers—violated both state and federal standards, warned that the Federal Government might withhold as much as $200 million in annual welfare payments to New York State if Newburgh put its new code into effect. The board also questioned whether Newburgh was as badly off as Manager Mitchell claimed. The city's welfare costs, according to state figures, were lower than those of comparable cities. Mitchell claimed that 5% of Newburgh's population was on the dole; the state estimate was 2.9%, slightly under the state average of 3.05%. According to Mitchell, a large slice of Newburgh's welfare money has been paid to recent immigrants; state experts noted that the city had actually spent only $1,395 in the past two years on relief assistance to newcomers.
In No Mood. Backed up by a tide of approving mail from across the nation, Mitchell was in no mood to back down. When Newburgh's own welfare director admitted that he, too, thought the code illegal, Mitchell and the city council forced his resignation, appointed a more pliable acting commissioner, ordered a departmental shakeup. Mitchell denounced investigating state-welfare officials as "Gestapo agents," and fortnight ago he put his code into effect. Last week he carried his fight to Washington, and waded deep into the choppy waters of Republican politics.
Invited to the capital by Republican Congresswoman Katharine St. George, Mitchell starred at press conferences, explained his code to a crowded meeting of the far-right Human Events Political Action Conference, found other interested listeners in conservative Republican Senators John Tower of Texas and Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Goldwater was particularly entranced. The Newburgh program was "as refreshing as the clear air of Arizona," the Senator declared. "I would like to see every city adopt the plan. I don't like to see my taxes paid for children born out of wedlock." Goldwater also took the trouble to deny that his remarks had "anything to do" with a potential rival for the 1964 Republican presidential nomination—New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who gingerly denounced the Newburgh plan before going to his Venezuelan finca for a vacation. At week's end, with the state preparing to fight Mitchell's code in the courts,* even Newburghers were beginning to wonder whether the plan was necessary after all. In the first muster of male reliefers last week, only one man (of the three who showed up) was eligible to work his 40-hour stint for the city. But whether or not his code is needed, and whether or not he makes it stick, Joe Mitchell and Newburgh have already made a lasting impression on the welfare state.
*In an off-the-cuff opinion, Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Abraham Ribicoff announced that at least work-relief programs were within the law, made no judgment on Newburgh's other code provisions.