Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-09-01
What About Unemployment?

w acting ss1 upon the ssnass's REQUEST ~ re-
Gently made survey of unemployment
throughout the country and estimated the
number of idle workers at approximately
five million seven hundred thousand, there
followed deal of questioning and surprise.
That industry had fallen from its wartime
pitch, leaving many factories, mills and other
fields OF production depressed if not quite
inactive, was commonly known; but it was
hardly suspected that the decline had gone SO
far as to force nearly six million wage earners
into the ranks of the unemployed. If this,
however, were indeed the fact, then what
were the causes and what could be done to
turn the disheartening tide?
Closer stu of the Departments, figures
showed that matters were not so bad as ap-
peared at first glance. The estimate of five
million seven hundred thousand was arrived
at, the statisticians explained, "by comparing
the number now at work with the number at
work when employment was at its peak in
1920" This puts the case in a different
light, for at the crest of the war period null
titudes of persons not ordinarily engaged
in the industries had been tempted thither
by the offer Of unprecedentedly high wages,
from the farm, the school, the home. 1t
was an abnormal state of affairs, as abnormal
as the prices LQen prevailing ana as SuCQ was
certain to end in sharp reaction. OF this
years unemployed" a considerable proper
tion may be accounted for by the natural
flowing-back of those whom the high indus
trial suction of 1917-1920 drew from their
usual retreats Consider, too, that in normal
times our unemployed will number from two
to two and half million, and the Depart
ment's estimate becomes markedly less dis
Quieting.
But with these due allowances, it is never
theless evident that many, many more people
are out of work than would be if American
industries were not materially depressed.
Factories have been shut down, improvements
and expansions curtailed, enterprises post
poned or foreshortened An obvious and i'm
portant factor in the situation has been the
decline in our overseas trade This certainly
would have been 1essened had the
Senate ratified the Treaty of Versailles be-
times, instead of leaving the country's foreign
relations SO confused and beclouded that
every province of our commerce with Europe
was disadvantaged. Month after month, sea-
son after season, our foreign affairs drifted
without chart or compass, because a group
of unseeing Senators ascribed more impor-
lance to their partisan and personal preju-
dices than to national prosperity and inter-
national goodwill. To the obstruction, delay
and decentralization which this blindness
brought upon US, must be charged a large
measure of the times industrial depression
and unemployment.
II is udTuly u DC SUPPOSED CQdC CQ0 ne
publican majority can wish to repeat or
worsen the rlunder which all save the obtus-
est must now perceive. But that undoubt-
eddy will be done IL the Fordney tariff bill,
with its foolish barriers against foreign trade,
becomes law. The countries to whom we
look for markets for large part of the out
put of our factories and farms and fields of
natural resources will not be able to buy from
us if they are debarred by exorbitant tariffs
from selling to u.s. Nor will they be able to
repay the billions which we lent them in the
war-years il our ports are virtually shut to
their goods, for it is only in goods and serv-
ices that they now can pay at all. Unless,
then, our foreign trade decrease is to be &C
centuated and its attendant misfortunes multi
piled, the tariff fallacy of Republican reac-
tionists must be abandoned
There Is nothing basically wrong with
American business. There is no inherent, in
durable cause for the Industrial lethargy and
unemployment Of recent seasons. In the
treasures of nature, in the energies of man
in all that counts materially America is as
rich today as at the peak of war-born pros
perity; and in the sober gifts of experience in
comparably richer. Moreover, there is a
world demand for her products, world need
for her labor's sinew and skill And so Wig
orous is her economic constitution that in
spite of political discouragements, creative
forces of prosperity are widely astir. Let
those to whom government is entrusted re-
frain from ruinous folly and show themselves
worthy Of a great nation with world priv
eges and world duties, and there need be nc
further anxiety.