The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-08-03
Today and TomOrrOv
Tue Administrations Appeal
By WALTER LIPPMANN :

rTOm the Deglnnlng those who have been planning for industrial recovery. have felt the pull of two more or less distinct ideas. One was to stimulate a quick revival of industry. The other was to lay the foundation of an industrial re- construction When the idea of a quick revival has been in the ascendant, attention has been cen- tered upon employing more men by reducing the hours of those who are employed and upon in creasing pay rolls by raising min mum wages. When the idea of permanent reconstruction has been in the ascendant, the emphasis has been upon eliminating the wastes of competition by cooper tive organization of industry un- der a new body of industrial law. In the first stages of the discus- sion last spring the idea of quick revival through a blanket limita- ton of hours and basic mini mum wage predominated. But the discussion showed that it would be difficult to apply such general rules to the almost infinite variety of industrial conditions, and that the project really required an amount of sacrifice from employers that many of them could not or would not make. | So attention was turned to the idea of legalizing organized action among employers. In effect, em- ployers were persuaded to approve the idea of shorter hours and higher wages in return for a sus- pension of many features of the anti trust laws. The National In dustrial Recovery Act, as it was finally approved, was kind of treaty in which the promise of better working conditions was set off against the promise that the government would henceforth ap- prove a much higher degree of combination among employers.
 Once the act was passed the work of organizing and codifying began. The assumption was that a better organized industry, which by code had eliminated wasteful competitive costs, would be able to pay higher wages for shorter hours. This assumption has not been abandoned. But the experl- ence of the past thirty days has shown, as the President put it, that it takes a good deal of or ganizing and great many hear ings and many months to get these codes perfected and signed" II I could not have been otherwise. The formulation of a new body of in- dustrial law cannot be done in a few weeks.
 The discovery that it could not be done made it impossible to give employers those advantages of com bination quickly enough to induce them, for economic reasons alone to shorten hours and raise wages. Hence the present appeal to their patriotism. They are asked in ef- feet to discount the future ad- vantage of combination and to shorten hours and raise wages at the expense of immediate profit.
 That this is the meaning of the campaign now under way IS eVl- dent enough from the character of the campaign itself. Were it be- lieved that the blanket code would be enforced by the self-interest oi employers. it would not be neces- sary to set up an elaborate propa- ganda and to threaten to boycott those who do not play their part But the matter has been plainly stated in earlier statements by the President and by General Johnson Both of them have insisted that at least in the first stages employ CTS must not raise the prices oi manufactured goods as quickly as they increase their pay rolls. Thus on June Is, MT. Roosevelt salo that If we now inflate prices as Hast and as far as we increase wages, the whole project will be set at naught. We cannot hope foI the full effect of this plan, unless in these first critical months, and even at the expense of full initial profits, we defer price increases as long as possible" On June 2s General Johnson was no less ex- plicit: "The tendency of higher wages is higher prices If We do g } thing like this and do not alse put some control on undue price , increases SO that prices will moi , move up one bit faster than is justified by higher costs, the con- , suming public is going to suffer