The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-08-14
DEMOCRATS TO
BATTLE HOOVER
ON PROSPERITY
Wit Use Statistics Trying
to Show Unemployment
on Increase.
BIZ United Press

By United Press
WASHINGTON, Aug. 14.-The
Democratic party will meet Herbert
Hoover on battlefield of statistics,
so far as the issue of "prosperity% is
concerned, it was indicated today.
Close senatorial friends of the
New York Governor, it was learned,
have perfected to their satisfaction
a campaign argument of Increased
unemployment under Republican
rule" which they will use in the
effort to elect Smith.
They will attempt to employ Hoo
ver's own words against him in their
speeches for Smith. The Repub-
lican candidate said, in reviewing
eight years of his party's tenure:
ANY Kind of Pail'
"Great progress has been made in
sterilization Of commerce and in
dustry. The job Of every man thus
has been made more secure. Unem-
ployment in the sense of distress is
widely disappearing, A general
reduction in the tariff would fill our
streets with idle workers At one
time we demanded for our workers
a full dinner pail We now have
gone far beyond that conception.
Today we demand larger comfort
and great participation in life and
leisure"
The Democratic Senators plan to
quote these statements to their au-
diences, and then to declare that
they are incorrect. They will assert,
on the basis of United States Bu-
reau Of Labor statistics, that though
there are more potential workers in
the country now than three years
ago, there are 1,674,050 fewer en-
ployed.
They will say this proves that the
job Of every man is growing less
secure and that millions Of idle
already fill the streets, and will
agree with Hoover that the issue,
for some, is not "a full dinner pail"
but any kind of dinner pail at all.
Can Blame Age
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
ers. Saying this they would be US
ing the same kind of logic as some
Democratic newspapers, which have
said the enlarged comforts of Ameri-
can homes nowadays are attribu-
table to the American system and
not to the Republican party, as
Hoover intimated.
Hoover, in citing 100000 more
telephones, 100000 radio sets and
100000 additional automobiles as
evidences OF prosperity under F.e-
publican presidents, had access to
correct Commerce Department fig
ures.
The Democrats, in their unen-
ployn1ent argument, have no exact
figures to go by. There was talk
about an unemployment survey
during the last Congress, but no
appropriation of money for such
survey.
No Exact Figures
The Bureau of Labor statistics
can only say what it said to Sec
rotary of Labor Davis when he re-
ported to the Senate last March
that 1,974,050 fewer men were en-
ployed then than three years before
There is no accurate figure for I'M
employment 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 number
unemployed would require a house
toulouse canvass, bureau experts
said. They pointed out that a recent
house-to house survey in Baltimore,
Md, disclosed only 15,473 unem-
ployed, whereas the State federation
of labor had estimated $4,000 out of
work in that city, and the Baltimore
Chamber of Commerce had guessed
$4,000.
The bureaus employment index,
issued monthly, does not try to es-
innate unemployment. 1t merely is
based on pay rolls of factories in
flfty-four selected industries and
shows the trend only in those in
dustries.