The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1921-11-05

~ and quite sincere people, these and many
others, not so well meaning sincere,
1--we treated the unemployment conference as an
elaborate gesture of little practical consequence
But in the month since the meetings 100000 of
the idle have been given jobs and this as direct
result OF conference action planning and subsequent
action. The conference did not merely meet, reso-
lutte and go home. II left active agencies to put in
operation its recommendations
Cities have resumed public building and i'm
provements; there has been marked increase in
private building; factories and mills are resuming
operations merchants are buying more freely and
the SNOWFALL has begun roll gathering as it goes
All over the United States local committees have
been organized and have given impulse to local
resumption of enterprise. Property owners have
been led to realize that it is better to pay in taxes
getting back full value in public works. than to pay
in charity with return the consciousness of
an almost enforced benevolence.
Secretary Hoover is not, however, satisfied with
merely temporary results. He has organized per-
manent committee to carry on a study of the whole
unemployment problem with its recurrent periods of
idleness and its seasonal vacations which promise
work for but half to two-thirds of the year He
believes that in both instances the peaks and val
leys be brought closer together and more on the
level 1t IS just such proposition appeals to
him It is humanitarian, intricate economic puz-
zle, and decidedly tough job, but one which will
surrender to careful and methodical attack
No greater service than this could be done for
the people of this country of all classes 1t is pos
sble that periods of business depression have been
regarded from wrong angle and remedy sought
from the wrong approach They have been studied
quite wholly from the financial side. Every factor
of capital, credit, banking, profits and operating
costs has been infinitely considered. 1t may be
well to study them from the labor side continuity
of employment, even level of wage, and of family
income, a stable purchasing power on which all
markets depend and by such means the preserving
Of savings made at peak periods through those of
such depression may come.
After all, good times and bad times are a mat
ter of markets. of the average of purchasing power
Employment, earnings, wage income and, as a con-
sequence, returns investment the variants not
capital which remains the and is but active or
inactive, as these variants react upon it. Mr.
Hoover seems to have decided to attack from this
new. angle. Whether the solution is, or is not
complete, such investigation must have most
valuable results and he has already gone far enough
tentatively that the extremes of periodic
and seasonal unemployment unnecessary, are
artihcially produced or are largely the result of
indifference, the acceptance of inheritance without
question.
To fairly stabilize employment the year round
to standardize wages throughout long series of
years, to assure savings permanent increase of
income, to measure markets by buying power in
known quantities. these ways quite as essential
to continuous level of prosperity, as trying to
regulate the worlds production, markets and
wages by the stopcock of money credit supply
Again it is the human element Mr. Hoover is con-
sdering as important than the artificial agen-
ces of exchange.