The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-11-15


posed code or waive any right to oh
requirements. These clauses reject t
ton of the code. either by act of the
President or on the initiative of any
association in the newspaper indus
try.
IN effect, the newspaper says: We
Il are prepared to accept the rules
in this code, but we do not agree
that you can proceed to use codes
to legislate for the newspaper bust
ness.
In order to appreciate the issue
which has been raised, it is neces-
sary to realize that an NRA code is
federal legislation for a particular
industry; it is framed by trade asso-
Citations, labor associations, and the
executive and is as enforceable as if
it were a statute that had been
written by the congress of the
United States. Mr.. Ford, for eX-
ample, though he has never signed
a code, is subject to the law Of the
automobile code precisely as if that
code had been passed by congress.
"A COOC 10 UIluS d NCAN OU11hlAlS On
ample of the delegation of legis-
lative power. If I read correctly the
paragraph on which the newspapers
are insisting, it means that they
refuse to agree that the power to
legiSlate for the newspaper business
shall be delegated. They are willing
to subject themselves to a particu-
lar set of rules, but not to the
principle that the NRA go on legis-
lating about newspaper publishing.
This means that while the news
papers are willing to accept certain
requirements about labor conditions,
they really do not wish to be
brought under the NRA system. In
other words, they do not wish to
have a code in the true meaning OF
the term. 1t would be better if
they said so frankly.
The issue would be clearer if they
did. 1t would be much better in
the long run to take the fortnight
position that newspapers do not be-
long under the code system contem-
plated by the national industrial re-
covery act.
For the code system as author
lied in that act contemplates the
setting up of control over whole in
dustries. The immediate purpose of
that control is to prevent destruc-
tive price and wage cutting; the
ultimate purpose is to promote bal
anced, co-ordinated and planned
management of whole industries.
Nov while newspapers are for
~ the most part profit-making
enterprises, their main function,
which is to provide news and opin-
ion, cannot be brought under the
conception of industrial planning.
At least not in a free country. Thus,
for example, it may be wise to say,
as the administration recently has
said, that the cotton textile industry
should not enlarge its plant.
That may be good planning. But,
no one can or ought to say that
new newspaper should not be started
or that two old newspapers should
be combined, as we are saying that
two railroads should be combined.
Competition may be wasteful in in
dustry. In newspapers it is the in
diSpenSable condition of freedom.
The industrial philosophy of NRA
is, therefore, wholly inapplicable to
the newspapers. For they ought not
to be combined. They ought not to
be co-ordinated They ought not to
be set up as public utilities and
brought within the orbit of govern
ment.
I am myself a believer in the i'm
menSe possibilities of the code sys-
tenn as applied to basic industries
and to highly competitive manufac-
ture. But there IS no surer way of
discrediting NRA than to apply it
indiscriminatelv and at wholesale.
1t never should have been applied
to little shops, to small stores, to
the large mass of modest enterprises.
1t has not been applied to the gov
eminent itself. 1t should not be ap-
piled to churches, schools, colleges.
or nonprofit making institutions. It
should not be applied to any &C
tivity which does not naturally and
readily fit into the concept of in
dustrial planning.
Even with all these exceptions the
field in which NRA does apply is
immense. 1t is so immense that the
task of working out and enforcing
codes in that field will take all the
brains and all the energy that
Washington can enlist. Why, then,
not concentrate on doing well what
MIRA was meant to do, and give up
trying to extend it into fields where
it does not apply and will not work?
Copyright 1881