sevenplusplus
a) The officialdom, shocked and frightened by the general unrest, expanded local relief efforts, hoping to moderate the depression's severity and to re-establish social order.
A, to me, appears to be a sentence fragment.
,expanded local relief efforts,
enclosed in commas on both sides, the qualifier looks like "non essential". Removing it looks something like this:
a) The officialdom, shocked and frightened by the general unrest, hoping to moderate the depression's severity and to re-establish social order.
Well, I can see now how this sentence is not a fragment.
"hoping to moderate the depression's severity and to re-establish social order." - this is a present participle terminal modifier phrase that modifies the action: expanded local relief efforts, which is the part of the independent clause.
The comma just before "hoping", in my view, is unnecessary. The sentence could be rewritten:
The officialdom, shocked and frightened by the general unrest, expanded local relief efforts hoping to moderate the depression's severity and to re-establish social order.
Back to A vs C -- anyone?