Page 32 - To Dragma May 1934
P. 32
MAY, 1934 29
significance for us here is through the field
stall of the local county unit of the Federal
Emergency Relief Administration. I should
explain that this staff is doing something that
pusses for social work among some fifteen
hundred families, the major part of the popu-
lation of Leslie County. (To tell the truth,
everything considered, that staff is beginning
v to do a pretty decent job!) Some two months
ago we finally got permission, after I hail
harped on the subject for about eighteen
months, to make radical change in the per-
sonnel of that staff, placing on it people chosen
on the basis of qualifications for the job,
rather than destitution. This has resulted in
our getting a staff of fifteen alert, active young
people, several of whom have had some col-
lege work, two of whom have their Bachelor's
degrees and, believe it or not, two of whom
have had a little social-work training. You
would appreciate my enthusiasm for this new
order of things if you could see how this
4. group compares with some of the people who
once graced that staff—most of them unedu-
cated, mentally calcified and with little or no
interest in social work of even a very primitive
sort. This new quality of personnel made it
possible for me to undertake with enthusiasm
something I have longed to do ever since I
first found myself involved in large-scale re-
COl'YKIGHTED I1V CAHFIKI.il & SHOOK, LOUISVILLE. K V . lief affairs. And that is, to meet regularly
Produce Tragedies Like This with the field staff of the relief organization
for discussions of social-work principles, case-
work problems, relief jtolicies, the social im-
I have the feeling that among our various re- plications of our own economic plight, and so
sponsibilities is one for preparing the people on—including, incidentally. T . V . A . ! Now we
with whom we come in contact for the social are doing it. We meet for half a day, once
change which seems somewhere on the hori- a week—and try to cover, I must conies-,
zon. I would not be so bold as to predict more subjects than could ever be crowded into
when and how we will see initiated some that amount of time.
scheme for reconstructing the economic basis
for life in the mountains and for heading its
Bring New Crop to Mountaineers
social thinking and social institutions at least Among other things, we discuss farming
in the direction of the best ideals of this and gardening. It is at present our most ab-
Twentieth Century. Perhaps for Kentucky it sorbing topic. Nor do we confine ourselves
will be through a Kentucky Valley Authority to theoretical discussions. First off we
in the not too distant future! Perhaps a com- arranged to use as instructor and consultant
prehensive planned attack on the entire moun- a member of the County Relief Committee
tain problem. Eastern Kentucky included, will who is an agriculturalist of the first water,
have to await another Great Depression and by practice as well as training, and who is
another concomitant sharpening of our na- intensely concerned about the farming situa-
tional social consciousness, since widespread tion here. Then we got stacks of bulletins
want alone seems able to arouse us from the about farming from State and FYderal
smug, lethargic indifference into which most bureaus.
of us fall so long as economic insecurity is
not our own threat, or so long as privation At a recent meeting we decided we must
is not under our very eyes. But whenever do something more concrete than talk about
social change, in a real and desirable sense, the ideas we were collecting. We felt we had
is to come to the Southern Mountains as a to gel down to something active and actual,
whole, 1 do not think we can start too early partly to relieve the pressure in our own
trying to make people ready for change—by brains; but chiefly, we decided we had to try
helping them more actively and hopefully to to make it possible or practicable for some of
want change, giving them some concrete idea the farmers to put into use some of our beau-
of the kind of change that is desirable and tiful theories. Among other things, we had
how it might be achieved, and bringing them generated a good deal of interest in Korean
to believe in the possibility of such change. lespedeza, a legume that promises to be a very
valuable addition to the forage crops of this
One of the avenues by which I try to arouse region as well as a vitally necessary soil
an interest in the T.V.A. and its potential builder. Lespedeza was chosen as the first
