Page 13 - cp19331935delinquency

--eleven--

for unemployed actors and actresses; the clerical and teaching pro_jects for the Los

.Angeles Cotmty Department of Education which absorbed about 500 teachers and clerks,

and the Crossing Guard Project which absorbed some BOO meno The pioneer accomplish-

ments of each one of these projects would make an interesting story in itself. SUffioe

it to state here that in the planning am organization work done in the establishment

of these projects was laid the foundation for all of the successive set-ups of profes-

sional, technical, women's work and community service projects in the State of Cali-

fornia and in the entire nation under various Emergency Relief Ad.ministration titles,

· under the Works Progress Administration and under the Work Pro jec)ta Administration.

All were built on these first experiments and the methods used were so sound that they

were universally adopted with little or no basic modifications.

Following through with our history of the Recreation and Delinquency Prevention

Project in Los Angeles County we now cane to the closing of the c. w. Ao in February

and March, 1934, and the inauguration of the State Emergency Relief Administration

which opened for business on May 1, 1934.

To brush past this transition without a brief comment would be to deprive it of

its significance in the trend of events and particularly in relation to the recreation

project and those who organized it. The R. F. c. was a fund-matching arrangement be-

tween the Federal government and political subdivisions. The c. w. Ao was a straight

Federal pump-priming plan to curb the depression and put money into circulation. The

s. E. R. A. was a fund-matching arrangement between Federal and State governments with
a return to the relief budget wageo

The first word received in Loa Angeles County ot the folding up of the c. w. A.

and the establishment of its successor, the s. E. R. A., came from Ray c. Branion, State

Administrator, who commissioned Messers. Dahl and Miller in February, 1934, to plan and
organize the s. E. R. A. and be ready to take over the work program and case load (About

60,000) of the c. w. A. at the earliest possible memento The job was to be done com-
pletely and thoroughly and without any fanfare of trumpets or publicity, using the tried

and proven staff of the recreation project in ~laces ot supervisory responeibility Then
0
followed several months of intense activity
0