The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1921-09-27

tremendously.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE. ~.
Especial Despatch to The Reformer)
... Copyright 1921.
WASHINGTON. Sept 27.-The usual
skepticism that attends every endeavor of
an experimental nature envelopes the un-
employment conference. Curious about
results, the query on most everybody's
lips was this: What can the conference
really do, can it furnish work for the I'M
employed, can it alter the laws of supply
and demand, can it bring normalcy?"
Inquiry at the White house develops
The fact that President Harding in acced-
ing to the suggestion of Secretary Hoover
that a conferece be called did not himself
know exactly what might be achieved.
If. indeed, he knew a remedy, he would
not have called a meeting of economists
but would have applied that remedy
without delay. He had confidence how
ever in the engineering mind of Herbert
Hoover and he believed that many of the
fundamental causes of unemployment
might be relieved if everybody were
agreed as to what those causes are. --.
If nothing else comes out of the en-
ployment conference but an agreement
as TO what are the causes of America :
industrial situation. officials will be
more than glad For it is true that
some businesses have been retrench-
ing purely because other businesses
have done so. PesSimistic talk has bred
timidity. Physiological factors have had
more TO do with the industrial depres-
sion than anything else. Fear that the
European market would not yield or
derS because of n dimunitiOn of its pur-
chasing power has caused abandonment
Of plans mt a time when the business men
ha. 1fyaIDs
to lay plans for Il long siege of new
markets.
VIII Get the Facts
What the unemployment conference
probably will give the people of Amer
lea is an economic survey of the United
States. Without facts and fgures, all
stories about the ups and downs of bus
mess conditions are mostly conjeetures.
Surface conditions are not always an in
dex of what is going on. President
Harding said so himself in his opening
address to the conference when he re-
marked:
Frankly it is difficult to know
whether we have reached that bedrock
TO which reaction runs before the up
ward course begins. but here are repre-
Sentatives of the forces which make for
all we are or ever can be. and your
soundings ought to be reliable"
The President saw before him the rep
reSentatIVeS or labor ana employer
groups. captains of industries as well as
students of economics. An agreement
by them as to what constitutes the true
condition of the United States will go
a long way toward carrying conviction
with the people of the country.
Keep Away From Treasury
Incidentally Mr.. Harding took a fling
| in his opening address at two currents
of thought advanced by folks who have
been more or less opposed to admins
tratiOn policies. He sounded warning
against the idea of looking to the gov
eminent treasury for relief, and he took
| issue with those who have been crying
| that American membership in the league
of nations would have helped our eco
nOmic situation. With respect to the
| first point. he declared that the excess
| of stimulation from raids on the treas
ury is TO be reckoned as n cause of
trouble rather than n source of cure.
The President said liquidation and re-
adjustment were an inevitable conse-
quence of the war and that che who
thinks they might have been avoided
| by this plan or that, by this interna-
tional relationship or that, only hugs a
| delusiOn when reason IS needed for safe
| counsel
The President aimed his remarks par
| ticularly at those who have insisted that
| Americas abstention from the councils
of the allies during the treaty fight
caused such moral depression in the Eu-
| ropean business world as to bring about
| the collapse of trade between Europe
and America. The international banks
have held to that idea and have sug-
gested it again and again to Mr.. Hard
| ing who however takes hhe opposite
| view and believes Americas troubles are
/ due to natural causes.
| Fears More Trouble This Winter
But whatever the controversy about
| the past, Mr. Harding stated the big