New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-05-24
Hoover Urges
American Cure
For Social Ills
Average Man Refuses To
Be Mere Commodity and
Asks Rights Instead of
Benevolenee, He Says
Socialism Has Failed
Demands Solidarity of In.
terest in Every Section
Engaged in Industry

For the Forthcoming July number Of
asvstem" Herbert Hoover has written
al article dealing with industrial prob
lens. 1t is called "The Paramount
BUSINESS of Every American Family
To-day" and discusses not only causes,
r but remedies
aNow, exactly what the worker is re-
fusins to be Is commodity" writes
Mr.. Hoover "Your average man is no
longer content to be merely a part q
the labor supply By and large, the
employees of the country are looking
fora position of right instead Of q posi-
ton Of consideration-that is, they
want their rights instead Of benevo-
lence.
Rights Of Labor
Exactly what those rights are is the
question that we have to solve, not
enly from an economic, but also q
human point of view. This is our
largest national problem, for in de-
fault Of a better work relation we
shall have decreased instead of In
creased production, and hence a lower
ing standard of living. And if our
standard of living goes down 1t will
hardly be worth while to consider our
other national aspirations, for then we
being democracy.
mere settling Of disputes. l have seen
growing out of the masses Of people in
every country aspirations for a great
economic change. That change broadly
will be that those who work with their
hands will obtain a larger proportion
OF this worlds goods and those who
work with their brains will obtain less
Those who do not work will probably
obtain nothing. Hence it appears to
me that any solution to this problem
must go deeper than questions of
strikes, lock-outs or arbitrations. We
have got to go sooner or later to the
root of this difficulty. We must begin
by creating somehow and somewhere
solidarity of interest in every Sec
ton of the people conducting our in
Gustrial machine.
Before thinking of remedies let US
consider causes, fully recognizing at
once that there is no one single cause
of social unrest, and that to argue
from 8 single cause is to confess to
dense dogmatism. A strong factor is
the growth of machine production, in
professionalism is, capital-has rot
only grown more important, but has
also become more dependent upon
labor and both have become wholly de-
pendent upon the public. None are
self-sustaining. They form an indivis-
ible trinity-but each member at some
time or other thinks that it may go
on alone just as a monarch frequently
lmaglnes that he can do what he likes
with his people. Capital has thought
itself supreme; labor, now recognizing
that capital without it is useless, is
beginning to think that capital itself
is useless and that labor is supreme.
The Public
1.-THE public Is demanding service
Of both at price neither can perform.
There are many other more apparent
causes, such as the rise in the cost of
living, unrestrained speculation, spec
tacular instances of excessive profits,
excessive accumulation and misuse of
wealth, inequality in readjustments of
wage schedules, release of ideas and
emotions by the war, social revolution
airy theories imported from Europe, the
belief that free speech is restricted, in
termittent employment, fear of unem-
Payment, excessive hours of work in
certain industries, lack of adequate
housing, unnecessarily high infant
mortality in industrial centers and the
loss of personal contact in large indus
trial units
Hoover finds that these problems
which served to intensity them. They
cannot, he argues, be controlled by
law or by legalistic process or reprss-
SION. Compulsory arbitration, he holds,
Is substitution of COVE rnment control
1or competition, "for if a court may
control wages it will in effect control
industry and in the end stifle it," This
ne calls socialism without its ter
minology.
=, Public opinion and good will are
.ae FORCES which must be relied on for
me enforcement of the right sort of
settlements" Hoover adds "Repres-
SION leads to the border of martyrdom
ana tends to make for compulsory en-
ployment and a compulsory wage and
also compulsory profits"
turning to the radical attempts at
government In Europe, he cites stats
ucs 70 show that it has failed to &C
'OmPlish anything constructive.
-. H.'nough socialism has now proved
tset with rivers of blood and suffer
Ing 10 De an economic and spiritual fall
aey and to have wrecked itself on the
roeh OF production, l believe it was
ddeeessaFy for the world to have had this
demonstration. 1t is not necessary,
SSo.wever, that we of the United
y Ssates, now that we have wit
messed these results, need plunge our
Emn population into these miseries and
aso laboratory for experiment in
4oaeign social diseases.
Inc paramount business Of every
a,hni N to-day" Hoover declares, ais
, .a,s business Of finding a solution to
saese issues. but this solution must
found round by Americans in q practical
san way, based upon Amen-
al ah IDEAS, on American philos-
Spny OF life. A definite Amer