New Britain herald., 1928-08-14
STATISTICS WILL
 BE USED IN FIGHT
Smith Intends to Battle Hoover
 With Figures

Washington. Aug. IA UP)-Al- fred E. Smith will meet Herbert Hoover on a battlefield of statistics so far as the issue of "prosperity" 1 concerned, it was indicated today.
 Close senatorial friends of the New York governor have, it was learned. perfected to their satisfac- ton a campaign argument of in creased unemployment under repub- lican rule" which they will use in the effort to elect the democratic Smith.
 They will attempt to employ Hoover's own words against him in their speeches for Smith. The re- publican candidate said, in review ing eight years of his partys tenure:
 Great progress has been made in stabilia ztion of commerce and in- dustry. The job of every man has thus been made more secure. Un- employment in the sense of distress is widely disappearing gen. eral reduction in the tariff would fill our streets with idle workers. At one time We demanded for our workers a, full dinner pail We have now gone far beyond that con- ception. Today We demand larger comfort and greater participation Tn life and leisure"
 The democratic senators plan to quote these statements to their audiences. and then to declare that they are incorrect. They will assert. On the basis of U. s, bureau Of la bor statistics, that though there are more potential workers in the coun- try now than three years ago, there are 1,S74.050 fewer employed,
 They will say this proves that the job of every man is growing less secure and that millions of idle all ready fill the streets, and will agree with Hoover that the issue. for some, is not "a full dinner pair but any kind of dinner pail at all.
 Republicans, if they reply, may do so by saying increased unem- ployment is due, not to something inherent in their party, but to mod ern industrialization wherein ma chimes tend to displace hand labor CTS In this they would be using the same kind of logic as some demo- cratic newspapers which have said the enlarged comforts of American homes nowadays are attributable to the American system and not to the republican party, as Hoover inti mated.
 Hoover. in citing 6.000.o0o more telephones, 7,OO0,000 radio sets and evidences of prosperity under re- publican presidents, had access to correct commerce department fig ures.
 The democrats. in their unem- ployment argument, have no exact figures to go by. There was talk about an unemployment survey during the last congress, but no ap- propriation was made.
 The bureau of labor statistics can only say what it said to Secretary of Labor Davis when he reported to the state last March-that 1,S74.- O5O fewer men were employed then than three years before. There is no accurate figure for unemployment in 1925, and there is nothing better than a guess as to how many men and women took status as potential workers since then.
 To discover the actual unemploy- I ed would require a house-to-h house canvass. bureau experts said. They pointed out that a recent house-to- huse survey in Baltimore. Md. dis closed only 15.473 unemployed. whereas the state federation of la Dor had estimated 75.0O0 out of work in that city and the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce had guessed S3,00O.
 The bureaus employment index, issued monthly, does not try to esti- mate unemployment. It merely is based on payrolls of factories in 54 selected industries and shows the trend only in those industries.