The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1932-04-08

modified for war-economic, in
dustrial, social and military re-
| sources gathered into a vast unit
| capable of any actuahty in the pro-
| cess of throwing into the scales ten
million men equipped with physical
needs and sustained by the realiz-
alton that behind them were the
united efforts of 100000 human
beings. 1t was a great plan because
it was built from bottom to top
and not from top to bottom.
| Sees Crisis Greater Than War
"In my calm judgment, the ma
| ton faces to-day more grave
emergency than in 1917. .
| 1T is said that Napoleon lost the
battle of Waterloo because he for
got his infantry-he staked too
much upon the more spectacular
but less substantial cavalry. The
| ton provides a close parallel. 1t has
either forgotten or it does not want
to remember the infantry of our
economic army.
These unhappy times call for
the building of plans that rest up
on the forgotten, the unorganized
but the indispensable units Of eco
nomic power, for plans like those
of 1917 that build from the bottom
up and not from the top down, that
put their faith once more in the
forgotten man at the bottom of the
economical pyramid.
obviously, these few. minutes
tonight permit no opportunity to
lay down the ten or a dozen close
ly related detectives of a plan to
meet our present emergency, but
can draw a few essentials be-
ginning in fact-of a planned pro-
gram.
ut is the habit of the unthink-
ing to turn in times like this to the
illusions of economic magic. Peo-
pie suggest that a huge expendi-
ture of public funds by the federal
government and by state and local
governments will completely solve
the unemployment problem. But it
is clear that even if we could raise
many billions of dollars and find
definitely useful public works to
spend these billions on, even all
that money would not give en-
ployment to the seven or ten mil
lion persons who are out of work.
Let us admit frankly that i. would
be only a stop gap. A real econo-
nomic cure must go to the killing
of the bacteria in the system rather
than to the treatment of external
symptoms.
"How much do the shallow think
ers realize for example, that ap-
proximately one-half of our whole
population-fifty or sixty million
people-earn their living by farm
ing or in small towns whose exist
ence Immediately depends on
farms. They have to-day lost their
purchasing power. Why? They are
than the cost to them of growing
these farm products. The result of
this loss of purchasing power is
that many other millions of people
engaged in industry in the cities
cannot sell industrial products to
the farming half of the nation.
This brings home to every city
worker that his own employment is
directly tied up with the farmers
dollar. No nation can long endure
half bankrupt. Main Street, Broad
way, the mills, the mines, will close
II half of the buyers are broke.
Il cannot escape the conclusion
that one of the essential parts of a
national program of restoration
must be to restore purchasing pow
er to the farming half of the coun-
try. Without this the wheels of
railroads and of factories will not
turn.
CLOSELY associated with this first
objective Is the problem of keeping
the home-owner and the farmer
owner where he is, without being
dispossessed through the foreclos-
ure Of his mortgage. His relation
ship to the great banks of Chicago
and New York is pretty remote.
The two billion dollar fund which
President Hoover and the Congress
have put at the disposal of the big
banks, the railroads and the cor
porations Of the nation is not for
him.
His is relationship to his little
local bank or local loan company.
1t is as sad fact that even though
the local lender in many cases, does
not want to evict the farmer or
home owner by foreclosure proceed
ings. he is forced to do so in order
to keep his bank or company sol
vent. Here should be an objective
of government itself, TO provide at
least as much assistance to the lit