Omaha daily bee., 1921-08-05
Building Industry Depressed
Loss to Society Because of the
Inactivity in This Important Line.
(From the New York Times.)

Averages are fiction, and the truth is not in
them. The roots of the present business de-
preston must be sought in quarters where con-
ditons are below the average, and there is one
which has escaped attention Our industries
are usually divided into five classes-agricul-
ture manufactures, transportation, mining, lunl-
ber-but there is sixth which is even more
depressed and which in its proportions rivals
several of the usual divisions Agriculture claims
to be suffering most, and is the largest of all.
But the trouble of agriculture is mostly mat
ter of prices and markets, and not of quantities
or wealth. The farmers are worse off than al
most any other class, but their suffering reduces
the cost of living to their fellow citizens, and
is manstay of our export trade. Within a
year over billion dollars worth of farmers
produce has gone abroad. more than in any
other year.
There is no such alienation Of the depres-
sion in the sixth of our industries, construction.
The Bulletin of the General Contractors asso-
citation has assembled corporation income tax
returns to show that its gross income is about
two billions. The United States Chamber of
Commences committee on statistics, on a wider
survey claims that the construction industry
has produced more than seventy-seven billions
of the national wealth, not far from rs per cent
of the total. The construction workers and
their families total eleven millions, and half of
the new security issues, over two billions, are
allocated to the construction field Although it
is not possible to concede precision for these
Inmates, authoritative though they are. the hg-
ures are worth attention because this industry
is both one of the most depressed and the one
which promises most hope of revival.
Building is but one item in the construction
industry and a committee of the engineering
council says that there is half billion of wages
lost through unemployment among 100000
building workers. The loss of this consuming
power is felt in all directions, and the unem-
ployed are burden on the community. They
h,r o11 u,ed he h, hair
own leaders, and have themselves been active
in the most destructive of all wastes, that of re-
striction Of production by combinations pref
judicial alike to the general interests and to
themselves. Every house renter knows what
the depression in the building industry means
the war, and is only just now revivng Every
year a million men reach manageable age and
most of them need homes for two. 1t is mod
crate to say that the country is short million
homes That is but one item in the estimate
that the construction industry now needs twen-
ty-fve billions of dollars for work essential to
the national comfort.
The bill of particulars which makes up this
huge sum includes a billion for each of the war
years for the railways, rather more than for
housing Public utilities need several billions
for construction. The hydro-electric development
of the country stopped when the government
lands were withdrawn from use, and billions
will flow into it when the industry is opened to
construction. Applications for two billions are
now before the federal power commission The
countrys need for these things is almost as real
as the needs of the unemployed for wages.
Sooner or later these needs will come together,
and good times are then due They are hardly
due before because the construction industry is
the one which employs the margin of work and
capital which makes the difference between
good and bad times. Times are never good when
the country is just living along meeting only
its daily needs. Hope revives with the revival
of the forward-looking construction industry.
That explains the much used and abused word
constructive in praise of policies for, 1ivening
our politics and economics. This is the direc-
ton in which potential bank credits can best be
used. Diversion of them to sustaining prices of
investments in existing industries lends cheer to
the security markets, but does nothing toward
the wage fund, Constructive credits for the
construction industry contains more cheer than
a stock market boom.