Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia made great use of WNYC radio to educate and inform his constituents. He is probably best known for reading the comics on the radio during the newspaper deliverymen’s strike in July 1945. But later that year, in another WNYC radio broadcast, he addressed a common problem faced by New Yorkers: how to cook a large turkey in a small apartment oven.
Remarks of Mayor LaGuardia at the Annual Meeting of the Welfare Council of New York City
On May 28, 1935, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia spoke about unemployment and economic conditions in the United States at the Annual Meeting of the Welfare Council of New York City. The following is a transcript of his remarks.
This question of relief in its present magnitude is one that seems baffling and difficult. There are some who say that it came suddenly upon us. To that I do not subscribe. Anyone with any vision or with any understanding of the economic condition of the country and the pace we were going could tell some ten years ago that a crash was inevitable and that we would have a large number of men and women unemployed in this country.
Waiting to enter the Municipal Lodging house, Department of Public Welfare East 25th Street, November 22, 1930. Photographer: Eugene de Salignac. Department of Bridges, Plant & Structures Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
When we suggested in the peak of the so called period of prosperity that we provide a national system of unemployment insurance—and this was in Congress back in 1924, 1925, and 1926 – we were ridiculed, called radicals and destructionists and were told of the amount of gold that the American working man had in his teeth!
We are still approaching it as if it were something temporary. I suppose many of you here have stiff necks from looking around the corner for prosperity to come back. We must realize sooner or later that we will soon reach a new normal. With the revival of normal business and industry we know now or at least it should be known that all the employable men and women would not be employed. Our productivity in the factory or from the soil is such that we can produce everything which this country could consume without employing all the men and women unemployed today. That being so, what we must do sooner or later is to adopt some plan, either to create the necessary spread of employment or some means to care for the surplus man-power that we know we have.
In the meantime it becomes necessary to take care of these millions of people in the country who through no fault of their own find themselves in need.
Relief for the Unemployed, Christmas, showing distribution of food, 23rd Precinct, December 24, 1930. Photographer: Eugene de Salignac. Department of Bridges, Plant & Structures Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Under our form of government of course I necessarily find very often this conflict of jurisdiction or division of responsibility – the state, the national government and the municipality or county as the case may be. The person who is in need is very little concerned with the source of relief. He must have it. I remember during my days in Congress when we sought to get federal aid for the people in drought-stricken areas of Arkansas, we were told of constitutional limitations – and we have them in Congress today – that it was not the function of the federal government; that belonged to the Red Cross. Then the Red Cross came before our Commission and testified. I went down to listen to them. Instead of listening to a humanitarian, we listened to an adding machine. They told us about the families to be supported in Arkansas on $2.50 a month, told us about the cornmeal.
I repeat this because I do not think you have any idea of what some of us suffered during that period in seeking to impress upon our national government the necessity of bringing relief to those people when their state and county were unable to do so. Now we have gotten beyond that point. The federal government is furnishing relief. I always felt it was the highest function of government to preserve life. That is what the federal government is doing now. I appreciate it, first, because I lived through that period of resistance of any appropriation from the federal treasury, and second, because – having had the responsibility for nearly one and a half years, I do not know what would have happened in this city without the aid of the federal government. We have been investigated and re-investigated. That is all right. I do not object to it at all. I have started too many investigations myself as a legislator to object to anyone else’s.
Who is to do this job? That is not so important, as long as it is done well. I expect Mr. Wardell (Allen Wardell, Chairman of Governor’s Lehman Commission on Unemployment Relief) will make some very useful and constructive suggestions based upon our actual experience. In a few days we will embark on a new system and it is inevitable we should have changes from time to time because it is all so new to us.
Another system commencing July first will be to get as many people on work relief as is possible. That is sound. The question has already been raised as to the latitude to be allowed the person on home relief, whether or not he is going to take a work relief job. I do not know. We can make that as difficult or as simple as you want. How many of you have seen “Thumbs Up?” I suggest everyone here go to see it. Someone wants to order some small cards. He goes into a printing office and it is suggested that a meeting be held at Union Square, one at Madison Square, and then a march!
Now to me it is very simple. Nobody is forced to work who does not want to. If you are going to start saying, “I am very sorry” and you approach a man timidly and say – “I beg your pardon, would you care to take a job?” – he is not going to take it.
We are going to have a great many jobs – I don’t know how many. They will be offered to the recipients of relief and they will be drawn from the relief rolls and put to work. That is all there is to it. The Supreme Court of the United States reduced the standards of wages yesterday. I believe the work projects will not be run in competition with private employment. Why do we make it so difficult? It is all so very simple in England. Some of you have attended the boards of review there. I have sat with them. They came up on the charge of not genuinely seeking employment and the employment service appears and says -- “Yes, we have offered a job to this person on this date, refused; offered again, refused; offered again and refused.”
Work relief program. Track Removal on 66th Street and 2nd Avenue, looking west, January 9, 1935. Borough President Manhattan – Civil Works Administration Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
I repeat – these projects will not be in competition with private employment. The wages have been fixed in accordance with the available funds and the number to be provided for. The city and state will have to continue to look after the unemployables. We do that now. Superannuated workers are receiving the old-age pension. Widows with children are receiving aid from the Board of Child Welfare. As I see it, if this system functions properly, we will know exactly how many unemployables we have to take care of in this city.
The present economic condition has brought many other loads and burdens to the city. We are troubled, as you all know, in caring for the sick. Our hospitals are overcrowded with the increasing load and demand upon us all the time. By reason of the economic stress, we find that private hospitals are having an increasing burden also, and it is impossible to add to this burden. I am seeking to do as much as I possibly can on preventive work. We are seeking to construct and operate a series of health stations. We want to establish clinics of contagious and infectious diseases and do more preventive work. That is not as easy as it seems, because we have to meet opposition from the profession, opposition from organizations and other associations and progress is not as rapid as some of us would like to see it.
We are going to continue to carry on this program of preventive medicine on a very large scale in the hope that thereby we can meet the hospital problem that is pressing us at this time. We have three hospitals completed, without the funds to provide equipment. An application was made to the federal government for a loan but that was not granted. We already appropriated for the equipment of Harlem Hospital last Friday and will borrow the money for it. We are pressing as rapidly as we can for the Queens Hospital and hope to be able to get funds for the construction of an additional hospital on Staten Island to take care of the charges which they now have on Randall’s Island.
As to the organization of the relief problem – as I stated, when I took office, I found it was a temporary makeshift organization and it is that now. Were it permanent, naturally it would be under civil service. In the personnel of that organization – and it is a very large personnel – any executive would find trouble in either seeking to control the appointments or refraining from doing so. There was one thing I insisted upon and that was that the organization would be non-political. I cannot tell you what tremendous pressure has been brought to bear on me from many sources for appointments. When I selected the Commissioner of Public Welfare, I gave him the responsibility of selecting his personnel. If his selection is good, the credit is his. If his is bad, the responsibility is mine and I have taken it. I do not permit any political member to control that organization and I refuse to build up a personal machine from that organization.
Sidewalk encroachment, West 16th Street, Manhattan, ca. 1935. Borough President Manhattan – Civil Works Administration Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
I saw in the papers a few days ago, that some person said there were still some employees from the old administration there. I was very glad to hear this. I would not have made some of the selections William Hodson, Commissioner of Public Welfare, and until recently, Chairman and Executive Director of the Emergency Relief Bureau, made, but once I gave him the responsibility, it was his to make the appointments.
We are going to have more trouble and will continue to have more trouble, because everyone who does not get a job is sore, and everyone who is fired has a story to tell. You can imagine how it is with an organization of 14,000 people. We will continue to do the best we can.
My political friends downtown tell me there is one organization that is even more potent than our politicians and that is the social workers group. I never knew there was so many of you in the whole world!
The home relief work will be materially reduced as we increase the work relief. I am going to recommend to my director of relief and to the Emergency relief Bureau, who I hope will recommend to the T.E.R.A., who will recommend to Mr. Wardell, who will recommend to the Governor, that everyone on home relief will have to report at certain intervals at the employment offices to find out if there is an available job. And I do not mean private employment offices. I do not believe it is unfair to require some amount of work from everyone who are receiving relief of one kind or another, except the unemployables.
I am so tired of hearing about those chiselers. I do not know whether they are there or not. I tell you that I think every relief worker who states that there is a certain percentage of chiselers ought to be sent out in his district to find them, or be fired.
All these systems of relief are temporary. It is the job and the responsibility of the leadership and the statesmanship of the country to find a permanent solution. The permanent solution must be uniform throughout the country. We cannot establish high standards of family life, sanitary conditions, employment liability and insurance and child labor laws in the State of New York if some other state is going to operate in competition against us. You cannot have a State economy and a National economy. You cannot take the constitutional limitations and construe them in 1935 in the same light that they were construed 75 years ago. You cannot leave the destinies of the American people in the hands of any tribunal no matter how well meaning it may be. We are either going to have a representative form of government or not. If Congress does not carry out the wishes of the American people, they have the complete control in sending a new Congress two years later.
If our constitution does not permit of proper regulation of our industrial system; if it does not permit of regulating it so that the willing working men and women of this country can get a job; if it is so to be construed that we are to have 12,000 people in the country on the relief rolls all the time – then the thing to do is to amend the constitution, to meet the situation.
Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, City Hall, n.d. Photographer: Bob Leavitt for American Magazine. Mayor LaGuardia Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
There is the problem of providing adequate labor conditions throughout the state, particularly in the employment of children. We here so much about the tyranny of the federal government coming into the home and taking our children. I will trust the federal government. I would sooner trust the federal government to take care of my children than I would the owner of a southern mill.
We must have uniformity. We must have national uniformity in the old age pension system. We must create the spread of employment by fixing the hours of labor. Intra-state and Inter-state? Yes. When the constitution was drafted and ratified, when you had thirteen separate, distinct colonies, without railroads, when it took two or three weeks to go from Philadelphia to New York or from Philadelphia to Washington; when there was no telephone system, no telegraph system, then you had intra-state problems.
Today we find that unemployment down in Georgia affects workers in New York. Today we find if the farmer in Iowa and Kansas is not working and cannot get enough for his produce, the needle-trade worker in New York City will suffer.
The whole country has been woven into one economic fabric and the quicker we realize it and the quicker we so adjust ourselves to meet that situation, the quicker will we get out of our present problems.
Mayor LaGuardia Speaks on Baseball
The following transcript is taken from a longer radio address Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia gave on WNYC on March 11, 1945. It differs somewhat from his actual address and has been edited for length and clarity. The history of baseball he offered omits the thriving African-American teams in the Negro League.
Baseball is an American game. I don’t know of anything that is more thoroughly and typically American than baseball. It was started a little over 100 years ago by Colonel Abner Doubleday. He devised the diagram of the bases and positions for players and named the game “baseball.” His first baseball diamond was laid out in 1839 in Cooperstown, in our state.
Mayor LaGuardia throwing out the ball at game 1 of the World Series, at Yankee Stadium, October 6, 1937. The New York Yankees beat the New York Giants 8 to 1. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
In 1845, the first baseball club was organized in New York City and was known as the Knickerbocker Club. This club first drafted the code of rules for baseball. The first game of record played under these rules between the Knickerbocker Club and a picked team, which called itself The New York Club, was played in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1846.
In 1854, there was a revision of the rules which provided specification for the size and the weight of the ball. In 1858, the first attempt at organization of the clubs was made as clubs were spreading to many Eastern cities. The National Association of Baseball Players embraced 16 clubs in New York City, and a well known New Yorker, W.H. Van Cott, was its first president.
In 1865 a convention was held in New York City at which 91 clubs were represented. In 1865 and 1866 professional baseball began to make its appearance and a conflict between amateurs and professionals developed. At that time, players did not derive their livelihood from baseball, but the more expert players accepted money from clubs to play on their teams. In 1866 we find the first pool selling and gambling and bribery by gamblers. This outraged the good element among the ballplayers and organizers of clubs and… it was nipped in the bud.
In 1868 the Cincinnati team was organized on what was known as semi-professional lines, but in 1869, the team was hired as an outright professional organization and made a successful tour of the United States, winning every game. Chicago next went professional and by 1870, the Amateur National Association of Baseball Players was abandoned. In 1871, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was organized in New York City. It dissolved in 1876 when the National League came into existence on February 2, with 8 cities as member teams. Its first president was Morgan G. Bulkeley, rather colorless, but he was succeeded next year by William A. Hulbert, who started baseball history. He was admired by everyone for he was the first to expel for life four baseball players found guilty of dishonesty. From this time in 1877, confidence was established in professional baseball and Hulbert remained president until 1882.
B.P.O. Elks #841 Clambake, Midland Park, Grant City, Staten Island. Scenes from baseball game, August 24, 1921.
In 1882 the American Association was formed in cities, not members of the National League, but by 1891 the American was merged with the National League into a 12-club organization, having a monopoly of major league baseball. It continued this way until 1900 when its membership was reduced to 8 members [Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati].
In 1900 Charles A. Comiskey, owner of the St. Paul Club of the Western league obtained permission to put a club in Chicago. He wanted to expand to Baltimore and Washington, which had been abandoned by the National League, so gradually a new American League was formed and became a rival with a following equally as great as that of the National.
In 1903 an agreement between the two major leagues established the National Commission, a final court of resort for all organized baseball and a new system of government in the baseball world. The Commission was composed of three members, the President of the two leagues and a third, selected by the two, who became chairman. Decisions rendered by this National Commission, after a few years, provoked another controversy in baseball. After a scandal involving players who were charged with dishonest practices the Commission was abolished in November, 1920. It was replaced by a one-man authority who every American knows, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a federal judge who was elected Commissioner of baseball with jurisdiction over all clubs and leagues….
Mayor LaGuardia & Police Commissioner Valentine with children from the Police Athletic League at ball game, ca. 1945. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Professional ball players regard their occupation highly. Men who win honors on the “diamond” are trained and disciplined. I would say that they have as great a responsibility to the public and to the children of our country as public officials. Temperance and clean habits are expected of all ball players, and late hours, over-eating, drinking, gambling and other forms of dissipation are strictly forbidden.
For several weeks before the opening of the season, the men are put through severe courses in physical training so that they may enter upon the serious work of the year in First Class condition. The manager of a team who hopes to defeat all other clubs in his league must see to it that his team is kept in fighting condition throughout the season. It takes work, work, work, as much as being a concert pianist.
These men who acquire fame on the diamond have the confidence of the people. You all remember our Lou Gehrig. When he was stricken and could not play, you may recall I appointed him a Commissioner on the Parole Board. It is the duty of the Commissioner to get information from men who have slipped and have been sentenced to the penitentiary. Sometimes it is very hard to get the truth. Well, you know, Lou Gehrig never had any trouble at all. When there was doubt as to the truth of the statements of any of the prisoners seeking parole, they would refer the case to Lou and Lou would question the prisoner. He would say, “Are you telling the truth?” Invariably the answer would be, “Oh, I would not lie to you, Lou, I mean Mr. Gehrig, I would not lie to you.” And they would not, because he represented something clean, something decent….
It is interesting to note that before Judge Landis was appointed, the Ex-President of the United States, William Howard Taft, had been consulted and considered whether or not he would take the Commissionership – he was quite a baseball fan you know. Under Commissioner Landis, strict rules have been laid down and rigidly enforced. Numbers of instances might be cited where betting syndicates have been fined and ordered away from cities where World Series were being played.
Yankee Stadium, Yankees on the field during game, probably the 1936 World Series. Cosmo-Sileo Co., NYC Municipal Archives Collection.
The last scandal, which resulted in the appointment of Judge Landis, was rather sensational. Here is a touching editorial from the New York Times of October 3rd, 1924 which is entitled “The Baseball Scandal,” and reads as follows:
“We should all like to believe that professional baseball is a clean sport. Patrons of the game are sensitive about its integrity. When the scandal in connection with the championship series between the Cincinnati’s and the Chicago’s came like a bolt out of a clear sky in 1919 nothing was more pathetic than the appeal of a little boy to one of the players involved. ‘Joe, you didn’t do it, say it is not true!’ Unhappily it was only too true. And now, on the eve of the annual struggle between the champions of the big leagues Commissioner Landis is obliged to announce the guilt of two members of the New York National team, against whom charges of attempted bribery has been proved, and to cast them into the outer darkness of ineligibility….”
You heard about the 10 million Americans who attended the game, I said that was but a small percentage of the real baseball fans of our country. Oh, I would say that at the twilight hour, after sundown in the summertime, and before dark, 40, 50, or maybe 60 million Americans are playing ball – that is, they are playing over again the games that were played that afternoon – yes, perhaps, the gentleman in his study and in his comfortable leather chair, or the farmer on the back porch in Iowa or Nebraska, with his suspenders hanging down, his chair tilted back; or the gentleman on the veranda of the country club; or the gentleman on the fire-escapes of an East Side tenement, or in the city drug stores or out in the forest or in the mines, are listening to the radio….
Crowd in the bleachers (World Series 1936). WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
At every supper table and in the family life of our country, the game is played over again. Every family divides, each has his favorite. There is always someone in the family for one club, another boosting another club. We have a Dodger fan right in our own family. I remember when the Yanks were playing the Dodgers, I told my children, “Now listen, remember both teams are New York teams, so please behave and be natural and quiet. We must be neutral, they are both New York City teams.” “You promise?” “Yes.” “You promise?” “Yes.” So we went out to Brooklyn and sure enough something happened, when the Dodgers were up, it was a two bagger I think, and Eric [LaGuardia’s son] goes Wheeee. I said, “Eric, didn’t I tell you to be neutral?” he said, “Yes, I’m neutral for the Bums.”
…So now, let us get ready. Start to clear your throats for your favorite team, because pretty soon, the whole country will hear, “Play Ball.” Patience and Fortitude.
Thanks to Andy Lanset of WNYC Radio for the audio clip, the full broadcast is available here.