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in kind. He thought that cash relief would be cheaper than work relief. Indeed it would have been. But the President, who was a practical man said, “But, see, we get something as a result. It may be actually less money spent, but you don't get anything out of it. Where as, if we can get work relief, at least the community, if these projects are properly planned, will get something as a result.”

The President had no idea of what enormously profitable, enormously useful things, communities would get out of this work relief, because at that time it wasn't a sufficiently planned program so that anybody could see what it was. The President saw, in his own mind, an extension of the CCC activities, He saw other people on relief going to work in the national parks. He saw that as a possibility. He saw what had been done in the State of New York where you had work relief and where people had gone to work on things like Jones Beach, That was built very largely by men who were on relief and who turned to and did what needed to be done, Bulkheads had to be built to preserve the beach, the beach had to be cleaned, quite a lot of structure had to be done to make the beach available for public use. I even think bath houses were built in this way under the state work relief project. So Roosevelt knew about some of those things and could argue for it.