The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-12-26
Crisis Sharpens
Big Decline

Continued from Page One)
said the Times. Car loadings drop
ped at a rapid rate for every week
in December.
Every basic industry in the United
States is involved in the throes of
the crisis. "The holiday week has
marked the low point of iron and
steel production for the year, says
the New York Times (Sec. 25).
A picture of the severe nature of
the present slump is shown by the
figures on steel production as COM
pared with one year ago.
The United Steel Corporation is
running at 81 per cent of capacity.
Independent producers run at 80 per
cent. Prior to the Christmas Holt
days in 1928 the steel corporation
was running at SO and 81 per cent.
The United States Department of
Commerce, in reality at this moment
part of the Hoover prosperity"
propaganda machine, gives a pic
ture of rapid decline all along the
line:
Industrial activity, as indicated
by operations in steel plants was
lower than in either the proceeding
month or November of last year. =.
Activity in automobile industry,
lower. Petroleum output, lower.
F.. :. . Movement of goods, lower. I.
Volume of building contracts rum
nine lower"
The Annalist of Dec. 10 worsens
the picture of capitalist economy in
this sharp manner: "The Annalist
Index of business activity for Nov.
drops 10 points--the largest single
month movement in ten years"
After surveying the general re-
cession, the Annalist says:
Surveying the whole field of
business, the realistic observer is
forced to be not little skeptical
of the ultimate value of the Wash
ington program of 'cheerio.' 1t
is good thing for the leaders
Of business to consult and to try
to work out a practicable STABILIZE
ing program, but to ignore facts
is to court defeat"
The facts blow to infinitesimal
bits of the propaganda broadsides
of the whole advertising" crew Of
the soundness of American imper-
ialist economy. American capital
ism is faced with the severest crisis
since 1918, with pre- poets for fur
Their drop.
Some capitalist agencies do not
even want to attempt to speed-up
economy, regarding this as being
futile" Says the Commercial and
Financial Chronicle" Nov. 30).
ITO attempt, by any device, or
scheme, to maintain trade at the
old unnatural levels would not
only be futile, but be the height
of folly. The only thing that the
president can do, and the only
thing we are persuaded he aims at
doing, is to prevent men, at a
time like the present, when con-
fidence in the ordinary course of
affairs is SO deeply disturbed,
from yielding to unreasoning fear
and cancel orders and scale down
production to such an extent as to
bring trade to an almost complete
standstill, thereby paralyzing oil
the energies of the entire pOpula-
ton. 1t would be deplorable IL
any attempt were made, or if
the presidents well-meant efforts
were construed as implying a pur-
pose to bolster failing enterprises
or to check the tendency to re-
turn to normal in the case Of over.
stimulated undertakings which are
as much inflated as the stock mar
ket itself was before the recent
collapse"
The Annalist adds to this draft
of opinion Of a section Of the capt.
talists of the futility of expecting
any immediate recovery in capital
lSb SCOIlOiily, dllu Sdiio upOil WIG euPi~
talists by wage cuts, and every
other means to re-trench themselves,
in the face of severe economic
debacle:
1T is probably expecting too
much hope that marked down.
ward drift in business, the prod
uct of great complex of influ-
ences having an immense momen-
tum, difficulty to measure and
even difficult in many regions to
trace in outline, can be wholly
checked even by cooperative
effort to avoid as far as possible
curtailment of business activity.
For a while a group of executives
may assent to the idea that such
cooperative policy is desirable.
each individual, nevertheless, finds
himself confronted with very
definite and urgent money c0nsid-
Grafton; and in most cases his