Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-18
Unemployment Cure
In Laws of Nature
To the Editor OF The Star:

To the Editor of The Star:
An Associated Press item In the Sat-
urday paper informs us that Secretary
Lamont is to confer with an assortment
Of conspicuous men concerning unem-
ployment. Although 1t may sound bit
radical to say so, such conferences have
no utility except to intensity the popu-
lar deIision that able minds are seri-
ously striving to fnd solution for per-
picking riddles and honest endesvor to
mitigate human misery.
We have two or three million unem-
ployed, TO which should be added most
of those in our jails, prisons and insti-
buttons. because we have man-nade
laws that Illustrate the grace of God"
and there Is no conspicuous reasonable
effort to relieve the conditions. Such
an effort must relate the condition to
its prime factors and the remedy TO
some fundamental idea Of economic
righteousness, which seems to be very
studiously avoided. Once, in an ad-
dress, Mr.. Wilson said: Justice is what
We want, not patronage and condescen-
sion and pitiful helpfulness. Give me
right and Justice and I will undertake
To take care of myself" but the rich
and honorable"-which seems TO be a
rather apt classification-are perpetu-
ally designing TO do something Tor the
American people, who would be quite
able to take care Of themselves except
for what the rich and honorable men
have done to them.
The labor contention is for better
wages and there arc something like
eighteen million men identified with
the Federation of Labor, but there
has never been q conspicuous sug-
eestion of the fact that fair wages
cannot be had on demand or won by
strike while the pinch of hunger tempts
the millions unemployed to take jobs
away from men that have them, and
at any wage, because half a loaf Is bet
ter than no bread, or that the wage
competition is not with cheap foreign
labor" but with the idle man outside
the Office or factory door and that
labors problem is the elimination OF
unemployment.
In book written so years ago find
a paragraph, a single paragraph, that
comprehends the whole situation, and
although il Is too brief and too lucid
and too obvious to have any value to an
Investigating committee, 1t may appeal
to some of your readers. Incidentally,
it should be suggested that legislation
that Ia out of harmony with natural
law and the inalienable rights Of our
oratory Is wrong and should be revised:
The natural right which each man
has Is not that of demanding employ
ment or wages from another man, but
that Of employing himself-that OF
applying his own labor in his own be-
half to the ineXhaustible storehouSe
which the Creator has in land provided
for all men. Were that storehouse open.
the natural demand for labor would
keep pace with the supply, the man
who sold labor and the man who bought
1t would become free eXchangers for
mutual advantage and all cause for dis
pute between workman and employer
would be gone, for then. all being free
to employ themselves, the mere oppor-
tunity to labor would cease to seem a
boon, and since no one would work for
| another for less, all things considered,
than he could earn by working for him
self. wages would necessary rise 70
their fun value and the relation of
workman and employer be regulated
by mutual interest and convenience"
j. 3. CHAMBERLAIN.