The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-10-30
The New Employment Plan

The ten-point program announced by the Presi-
dents committee on employment plans has much
meat in it. If the general plan is followed unques-
tionaby the country will be better off, This is true
despite the fact that much Of the plan is DID, that
some parts of it are weak, and that the plan as a
whole might have gone farther.
Recommendation No. l. Citizens with money
should resume normal buying. This is important.
The unemployed and the poor can not buy There
FORE unless those with incomes begin to spend, the
depression will grow worse. To resume normal buying
is to provide jobs.
Recommendation No. 2: The national credit struc-
ture should be strengthened The committee wisely
suggests the creation of further agencies public and
private such as the National Credit Corporation to
release frozen credits But the committee also wisely
in our Judgment is cold to the Hoover plan to &C
compsh this through broadening the eligibility clause
of the federal reserve act
Recommendation No. 8: Bankers should be liberal
in their credit policy toward their customers. 1t is
unsafe to generalize here With some banks failing
around them, it is natural and desirable that sound
banks put caution above Iberality; their first duty
is to their depositors
Recommendation No. 4: Spread available work
among as many workers possible. This is essen
ton Already it has provided many part-time jobs
and can provide more.
Jobs This is not practicable in our judgment Civil
servants for years accepted salaries far below
the industrial level in exchange for permanence and
security The taxpayers afford to continue to pay
the low wages of this special class of trained workers
better suggestion is to create additional temporary
public jobs. The government should create employ
ent not unemployment. This applies equally to the
married women who work, and most of whose incomes
according to government survey%are essential to
family living. The largest class of government en-
ployes, incidentally, are soldiers and sailors
Recommendation NO. g. Cut the official red tape
which is holding up emergency public works. This
is vital 1t is aimed at fault in the Hoover admin
istration which can be corrected.
Recommendation No. 7: Special effort should be
made to spread work among the whte-collar class
Probably the abest part of the committees report is
that which shows why the white-collar class is the
worst sufferer from the depression.
Recommendation No. s: new concept of work
is needed recognizing the right of the steady empoye
and the old employee to hold his job Too many en-
poyers today are letting out mature workers to hire
boys at lower wages This is inefficient as it is
cruel
Recommendation No. 9: Communities should or
sanize to meet local unemployment problems. No one
will question that
Recommendation No. 10: Transfer surplus labor
from cities to farms. This probably Will not work.
Farmers have suffered ten years of depression Wealth
is concentrated in the cities, which will have to care
for their own workers who helped to create that
wealth.
Taking the ten recommendations whole, We
believe they will be beneficial But they are not
enough.
Why was the committee silent on all those SuggeS-
lions which the President opposes but which so many
economists and business leaders consider essential to
adequate relief?
Does not the committee recognize the need for
unemployment insurance, for a national industries
board and planning commission for supplemental
federal appropriations for poor communities unable
to care for local distress for much larger public
works programs?
Perhaps the committee is considering these obvious
emergency measures and yet will add them to its
recommendations We hope