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organized and effective manner. In addition to considerably upgrading and
overseeing the sleeping quarters and eating facilities (the "galley"), the
Subcommittee successfully ran a recreation hall, a clothing distribution center, a
sick bay with paid nurses, and even a barber shop. The Subcommittee also
efficiently distributed relief funds to the many seamen who were boarded outside
the Anchorage in waterfront hotels, and who were fed in restaurants. By accounts,
the Subcommittee did its job equitably and without corruption. All of the relief
facilities and services were open to all seamen regardless of political or trade-union
affiliation (or lack thereof) and regardless of race, religion or creed. Ira De A.
Reid wrote in the Urban League's 1934 survey of African Americans in Baltimore
that Black seamen shared all relief facilities "including dormitory, dining room, and
barber shop on a basis of equality with the white" seamen. And Bill Bailey, an
MWIU activist in Baltimore for much of the first half of 1934, has written that,
"One thing must be said for our side [the Seamen's Subcommittee]: from the day of
its inception to its demise, not one cent was ever pocketed in the form of graft,
under the counter activities, or spent for the personal use of any of the
committeemen." There is no evidence to contradict Bailey's assertion. "
It is not necessary, however, to depend only on accounts by those involved
with Baltimore's social movements when arguing that the Subcommittee was both
effective and competent. In April 1934, after the new relief system had been in
place for about three months, a Mr. Harman investigated this system at the behest
of FERA in Washington; FERA wanted to hire him as executive secretary of the
Baltimore's seamen's center and hoped his visit would convince him to take the job.
In his report on his visit to the Anchorage, Harman wrote: "My impression was
favorable. The rooms were well lighted and the floors and walls fairly clean, the
bed linen fresh and all beds made up properly..." He also approvingly cited the
judgment of a seamen's committeeman that "the conduct of the sailors had
improved since the inauguration of democratic self-government." Mr. Harman
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