The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-11-23
Side Lights on the Depression

Side Lights on the Depression
One of the most serious and one of the least
excusable aspects of the impending relief problem
of the coming winter is our blank ignorance Of the
scope of the problem and of the degree to which our
existing agencies prepared to meet it,
This is emphasized at length by Robert L. Duffus
in an article on Relief by Guess" in the New Re-
public:
I'VE do not know the exact number of the I'M
employed though DR.. w. P. Mangold using all avail
able data arrives at an estimate of between 100000
and 10560O00.
I'VE do not know how many of the unemployed
still have to resources which will tide them over
without resort to public private charity.
I'VE do not know how much it will cost to give
public or private relief to those who will suffer with
out it,
I'VE do not know whether the existing and pro-
posed means of obtaining this probematcal sum
actually will suffice to produce it.
"Yet without this knowledge relief work is guess
work If we guess wrong, we may find ourselves
facing major crisis before spring"
Mr.. Hoover has been famous as fact collector
and there is situation which has existed since he
has been in the public eye that insistently de-
mands the cogent facts. Why has he not gathered
them? Mr.. Duffus suggests possible explanation.
Such facts would constitute statistical description
of the depression"
Such description would be pretty hard an
administration which three years ago held up the
rainbowS end by promising to abolish poverty"
The Labor Bureau indefatigable collector of facts
relative to our economic situation still continues to
give us dolorous picture of present industrial and
wage trends Wage cuts become more numerous and
serious and employment and per capita earnings are
the drop.
But there is one bright spot in the picture"-
the growing acceptance of the f1ve-day week as
permanent item in our industrial procedure
recent survey, covering 1000 900 workers in 1887
establishments showed that "a per cent of employees
are on permanent f1ve-day basis This does not
include any establishments which have temporarily
gone on a fve-day schedule because of the depres-
sion The leaders in this trend are, in the order
named, the automobile, radio, textile, dyeng and
aircraft industries.
This is only faltering first step, but it probably
denotes the path along which American industry must
move
1t is not usual to find Ben Marsh of the Peoples
Lobby coming to the aid of American corporations.
But in the last issue of his Bulletin he points out
very important objection the radical proposal that
the cost of compulsory unemployment insurance be
put employers exclusively:
"A large proportion of employers are in almost as
serious straits the unemployed In both 1928 and
1929 nearly two-1fths of corporations reporting had
net income and in each of these years net deficit
of $2,16o000O00 The proportion of employers in the
red OF employees affected and the deficits must have
been larger in 1880, and will be this year. than in
1928 and 1929"
The government is the only agency which can
handle this matter. 1t must make substantial
tribution to the unemployment insurance fund Tax
alton is the only way in which this burden can be
equalized. 1t take from those who have without
wrecking those who have not. Highly prosperous
corporations be made to pay in proportion to
their ability.
To be sure along with such thoughts and sugges-
TONS go the technique of industrial planning and
reorganization which progressively would reduce the
number of industries and corporations which earn
nothing
Pennsylvania legionnaires sent a piece of coal as
trophy to California. They didn't mean anything
South Carolina in 1877 passed a law chasing &C
tors Migrants Must have foreseen this depression