Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-05-02
The President and FrssperitY,

No more welcome word has come
| from his high place since he took Office
than President Hoover's assurance that
the economic crisis is past and that
American business Is again definitely
on the upgrade. That was the burden
of his impressive address to the Cham
Der of Commerce of the United States
in Washington last evening. 1t was a
typically Hooveresque utterance. 1t
eschewed the glittering generalities of
optimism and dealt with the causes and
effects of the latest major mania" in
terms of practical common sense It is
an arresting and stimulating state
paper.
The news value" in the Presidents
speech lies in the announcement of his
intention, las soon as matters have
cleared a little" to subject the recent
upheaval to comprehensive study. To
that end, he purposes resorting to the
favorite Hoover method of a fact-f1nd-
ing commission. The President reveals
his engineering-eXploratory bent when
he indicates that the commission will
have a twofold objective. 1t will ex-
anime into not only the 1929 slump in
securities and business but also into
the boom which preceded and led to it.
Mr.. Hoover is peculiarly interesting
when he thrusts, as his own diagnosti-
clan, into the pathological cause OF the
stock crash and its far-flung after
math. "All slumps," he says, ARE the
inexorable consequences of the destruc-
tive forces of booms. If We inquire into
the primary cause of the great boom on
the stock exchanges last year, we find 1t
, rests mainly upon certain forces in
herent in human mind. When our
Nation has travelled on the high road to
prosperity for a considerable term OF
years, the natural optimism OF our peo-
pie brings into being spirit of undue
speculation against the future.
The effect of these vast contagious of
speculative emotion is to divert capital
and energy from healthy enterprise-the
only real source of prosperity-and to
stimulate waste, extravaganza and I'M
sound enterprise, with the inevitable
collapse in panic. do not
accept the fatalistic view that the dis
covery of the means to restrain destruc-
tive speculation is beyond the genius of
the American people"
So it is to the future, rather than to
the recently devastating past, that
President Hoover would turn the gaze
and constructive energies of the coun-
try. His proposed inquiry into the twin
evils of boom and slump is to lead the
way. He assures us that the founda-
tons for resumption of stable times
are already laid. Capital has come out
of hiding. Interest rates have gone
down. Building operations are extern
sively on the increase.
Above all, American business leaders
have demonstrated that intelligent
teamwork on their part, in co-opera-
ton with the agencies of Government
is capable of checking impending dis
aster. The President did not 60 too far
when he acclaimed as an unparalleled
achievement the great experiment
possibly one of the greatest in our his
/ tory" which resulted in stabilizing tbs
Nations economic forces last Fall. That
thereby the effects of the crash were
mitigated, and its destructive period
shortened, is no longer op;n to doubt.
Mr.. Hoover would have the American
people learn from the experience
through which they are now passing. He
comedies that they are not entirely out
OF the woods. But the President pro-
claims his confidence that America
is finding herself" and intimates that
If We but have the wisdom and courage
to profit from costly lessons, our steady
progress down "the road to social salts
faction" cannot be INSTRUCTED.