The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-04-19
Business and BallyhOO

After all the washington ballyhoo about business
conditions improving since "the turn of the corner"
last December the latest Official figures OF labor de-
partnent are apt to appear hopeless than they
really are.
Those incomplete figures show that manufacturing
employment conditions were worse in March than at
any other time since the depression began They show
virtually a steady decline since last September Using
the 1926 average as 100 the index fell as follows
September, 99.S; October, 983; November 94.0; De-
cember 919; January, 9O2; February, 9O3; March
s93
Last months low figure of 1913 compares with 986
in March, 1929 and 1903 in March, 1928.
The test Of intelligence is not immunity from mis-
takes but the ability to learn from experience These
recent m aths and the new low employment figures
should teacn us that honesty is the best policy in
handling business depression The nation has paid
a heavy price for the luxury of whistng to keep up
its courage instead of facing the facts.
Those facts have not been so bad as our silly at
titude toward them. The facts are that the nation
only is not ndustrialy sound but is far superior to
any others in all the basic factors Of prosperity such
as agricultural and mineral resources, labor productv
ity industrial equipment home market and credit
supply.
But the accompanying fact-which is OF more I'M
mediate mportance-is that industrial system is
so terribly mismanaged that We periodically allow
this natural prosperity to turn into suicidal cycle
of fat and lean years.
Leaving aside all ethical indictments and the in
Justice to those millions who periodically are thrown
out of work and putting it on cold business basis,
what can be said for the efficiency of such system?
The sheer waste and destruction of potential wealth
caused by these cycles of unemployment should make
every business and politician in the country sit
up nights.
Here, then, Is q tremendous problenl-the biggest
of all poblems-in industrial and social engineer
ing. Like any other engineering problem it can not
be solved by quackery and it can not be solved over
night
But individual cities, like Cincinnati and indi-
vidual industries like the mems clothing industry.
are making an intelligent beginning in stabilzing
employment. Doubtless most Of the solution must
come from inside industry itself, through.some funda-
mental reorganization spreading production with
consumption and making adequately paid labor the
first fixed charge upon capital.
To the extent that industry fails to solve its own
problem the government in the end will have to tax
industry to provide-through unemployment insur-
ance and oherwise-the living which is the right Of
citizens denied the right to work.
Meanwhile there is an immediate job which only
the government can do, and inswhich it is falling
utterly Ours is the only major government in the
world which fails TO provide a system of complete
employment statistics without which the manysided
problem of seasonal-sectonal- archaeological unem-
ploy-rent can not even be understood, much less
solved
The Hoover administration can at once pass the
long-pending bills for federal statistics for federal
employment exchanges, for federal construction
projects through a stagger system. 1t can make
available quickly the special employment statistics
now being gathered in the census
It can defeat the high tariff BILL which would
burden our consumers and kill much Of the export
trade upon which industrial revival largely depends
Business prosperity IS ours for the making. But
balyhoo viii not make t. We must have intelligent
planning and hard work by both business and
pog*cal leaders,