The Gary Committee [ 343 ] he believed it was doing. Lecturing at a benefit for the unemployed in the Metropolitan Opera House, he praised the committee for taking the lead in the immediate relief work that was so necessary, and later maintained that its chief contribution was as an antidote to the "IWW and other radical agitators" who had threatened the stability of the city. Roosevelt personally publicized the municipal workshops with a zeal that neither the mayor nor the committee could ever match. Touring the shops, Roosevelt spoke to the workers and was photographed with them. He publicly buttonholed Chairman Gary to lecture to him on the importance of involving businessmen in such work, and stood in line with the residents of the Municipal Lodging House to eat a meal with them. In all of his activities Roosevelt gave the impression, one which the reform administration could not, that he cared about the unemployed as much as about unemployment.88 Another supporter of the committee was Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, whose husband had refused to cooperate by increasing the number of workers in his company. Mrs. Fish greatly appreciated the publicized ideas of Elbert Gary. She felt they would put an end to the "silly prattle" that it was unwise for the rich to entertain as usual while unemployment in New York was so severe. When you entertained, she reasoned, you spent money and gave jobs. Therefore the rich should entertain a little more lavishly now than before. "Isn't that a common- sense application of Judge Gary's theories to social life?" she asked.89 Gary was thankful for such support and could not understand why it was not more general. He and the committee felt that they had made substantial advances in their brief career. In April 1915, when they closed down the sixteen workshops (ignoring petitions from some workers to keep the shops open until they could find employment elsewhere), the committee issued a preliminary report which cataloged its accomplishments during the past four months. They had spent $155,770, finishing with a surplus of over $13,000. Most of the money went to the workshops, which gave employment to ten thousand men and three thousand women. In addition the committee had paid wages in the form of scholarships to three hundred girls while training them 88 Ibid., January 27,1915, March n, 1915; American, February 24,1915, March n, 1915- a9Times, January 17,1915.