Evening star., 1932-09-18

loans Tor the repair OF equipment.
g. The Federal Government, for the
first time in any American depression,
has entered into the direct buying and
selling of commodities This it has done
in grains and in cotton through the Fed
Grad Farm Board. 1t has done it as only.
an emergency measure. 1t nevertheless
has done it and has claimed that the ac-
ton was necessary and that the outcome
relative to any other conceivable out
come of any other conceivable policy
was beneficial.
THESE six ranges of efHSt have ac-
cumulated into a situation graphically
stated by Mr.. Matthew Woll Of the Amer
ican Federation of Labor His words de-
serve a woeful pondering by every Amer
lean business man. He says:
With the government now at the point
Of entering every line Of business on the
grandest scale ever known, we may well
say that Labor day Of 1882 marks largely
a policy Of abdication of industry from
mastery Of its own house, the Govern
ment taking its place. This is not Amer
ica's traditional line of development, but
the Nation, having found itself in posi-
tiOn where industry in the main has
failed to meet its obligations, had no
other course to pursue. If industry fails
to fulfill its mission, then government,
to save the people, must act, no matter
how far it has to 60"
The proper commentary upon Mr..
Wolls commentary would lie in a COM
parison of the American business struc-
ture of Mr. Cleveland's day with the
American business structure of the day
in which Mr.. Hoover has exercised the
presidential power
American business in Mr.. Cleveland'S
day had a relatively amorphous struc-
ture. American business now has rela- |
lively integrated structure. formless
organism can arrive at some sort of sur
vival simply through the struggle of its
individual parts. An integated organism
requires a concentrated leadership.
In this depression it was perhaps up
to our masters of finance and of industry
to provide that leadership. In some de-
gree they did so. They provided it, how
ever, in no degree that was sufficiently
comprehensive, sufficiently impressive,
sufficiently authoritative to command
popular confidence and elicit popular
support.
An organized economic society was left
essentially destitute Of organized private
economic direction. That was the truly
tragic destitution, historically speaking,
revealed by this depression. In our man
agement of our arrived economic society
a great void was presented to view. Into
that void, by an immutable law of nature,
something had to move.
Something did; the Federal Govern
ment.
It Is thereupon sometimes said that
Mr.. Hoover has been false to his princi-
pies. 1t can be better said that he has
applied his principles to the full extent
but only to the extent-dictated and
permitted by the circumstances.
In his third annual message to the
Congress Mr. Hoover said: There has
been the least possible Government entry
into the economic field" That certainly
has been Mr. Hoovers reSolute intention.
In his acceptance speech last month
he said: "The administration has met
the situation with proposals to private
business and to the Congress of the most
gigantic program Of economic defense
and counter attack ever evolved in the
history of the Republic" That has been
Mr.. Hoover,s reluctantly and yet reso-
luteIy accepted fate.
The true definition Of this man is not
ultra conservative" or "reactionary."
Such character would have seen all the
individualism Of our American economic
world 60 to complete ruin rather than al
low the Federal Government to cease
being completely individualistic.
The definition of Mr. Hoover is that