The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1929-11-29

Washington - Secretary Spen-
GER of the building trades depart
ment of the American Federation
of Labor says that a greater pro-
portion of building trades mechan-
les and laborers are today unem-
ployed than have been without
jobs at any time since the lean
years before the world war. And
if it were not for the desire of
corporations that have made big
profits and want to pillow these
profits into new structures to a
void payment of income tax, the
paralysis in the building industry
would be much worse than it is.
Starting from that situation as
basis, the anxiety of President
Hoover to ecure agreement among
the men who rule private industry
that they will maintain and ex-
tend their payrolls in the coming
six months is readily understood.
Hoover TO secure agreement among
far more serious than the stock
market collapse: he faces the pos
sible panic of employers, aided
and abetted by greed and resent
ment toward the gains made by
organized labor. He has called in
the spokesman of the railroads,
the banks, the factories and other
branches of industry, and begged
them to save the prestige of capt.
talist society by employing more
men instead of letting men go.
Having observed the effects-po-
litical and industrial-of stupid
class aggression by organized en-
ployers in Europe after the war,
Hoover suggests to American
business that it had better smile
and treat American labor like a
brother.
MN!
So far as disclosed in the first
stages of his parleys with the men
of money, the President did not
tell them that they must not think
of cutting wages. But the report
of his committee on Recent Eco
nomic Changes, out this year, EN-
phasized the need for keeping the
wages up in time of crisis. AND
every employer knows that whe1
the spokesman of the American
Federation of Labor and the bis
independent unions and brother
hoods are heard, they will declare
that there must not be one penn!
of wage reduction. Hoover, forceC
to take sides on this issue of wage
cutting, will tell the country tina
high wages mean better HON,
market.
Political attacks on Hoover, has
ed on the assumption that he de
sired to get into this stock-marke
crash discussion, are all mistaken
Hoover dreaded the approach o
the hour when he must take
hand in restoring public conf
dence. He came into the pictur
only when warned by men high i
the financial world that the crasl
was the most serious in a genera
ton, and that Secretary Mello,
was blamed for persistently deny
ing the warnings made by econo
mists that stocks were far to
high. The White House sidestep
ped as long as it dared evade tn
issue and then it proposed confer
ences in which the business me
would be staged as responsible
parties. Mellon will not appear a
the villain, but Hoover will be reI
resented as warning organize
business that it must show that
can keep millions of workers en-
ployed and contented. If it fails
then look out for dangerous indus
trial unrest!
llllli
Slowly the details of individus
and family disaster and TRACED
resulting from the bursting of tn
speculation bubble are coming t
light in the capital. One of tn
press correspondents who listene
to Hoover's announcement that tn
railroad executives would stand h
him had just sold his automohil
TO satisfy the demands of his stoc
broker. Another had seen 70
years savings wiped out. Tn
families of scores Of other mode,