Everywhere they travelled, whoever they talked to, employers as much as workers, the replies were always the same: jobs were what was needed, with decent wages; relief, in the form of groceries, vouchers or cash, was not just humiliating but often inappropriate. Thomas Steep, writing from Chicago, reported that the Italian, Jewish and black families he had spoken to had all told him that when it came to home relief, cash was better than kind, since the grocery parcels invariably contained items that one or other of the recipients could not eat.
