The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-12-29
Today aud Tomorro,v
. By WALTER LIPPMANN
Is IL q Reuolution?
Copyright. 1883, New York Tribune Inc

forces of recovery, or the monetary policy, brought about a great ds
 mand for goods.
 Under these conditions, how long would farmers let Washington tel them how much they may produce? How long would the people pay taxes to pay farmers to produce less? How long would business men stand for those codes which limit the entrance of new producers? How long would the people allow combinations in restraint of trade?
 The moment the recovery comes and prices rise through scarcity Of supply, a revolution in public opin- ion is bound to take place. The producer, farmer and business man will rebel against restrictions which prevent him from taking advantage of the market. He will attack the established industries, which have a semi -monopolistic position under the codes, and he will be joined by ths consumer, and We shall have what we have always had in time of rising prices, an outcry against the high cost of living, an anti trust agitation, and an attack on the tariff.
 A very good laboratory demon stration is being furnished by the liquor industry. Here is an industry in which for more than ten years production and importation have been drastically curtailed by law The result is that the supply is wholly inadequate to meet the de- mand. The result of that is high CT prices. The result of that is an outcry against the ''whiskey trust" and a series of quick moves to lower tariff barriers and let liquor flow in. In New York the attempt was made to limit sales by deny ing licenses to new restaurants. The limitation lasted two weeks in the face of the public demand for liquor and the revival of pri- vate enterprise.
 There sould not I believe, be a heater proof of the thesis that our experiments in regimentation are due to glutted markets, and that the appearance of scarcity would radically alter the public attitude Toward them.
 The concIusIon to be drawn is that the existing regimentation will last just as long as Congress said it should last: that is, for the pc riod of the emergency; that these measures for restricting production are not revolutionary changes in American institutions but tempor- ary things that resemble not Rus sian collectivism but the emergen- cy tariffs, the import quotas, the exchange restrictions, the burning of coffee in Brazil, all that mass of measures in the world over to pro- tect the producer in markets glut- ted because the exchange of goods has broken down Their essential principle is that of a temporary defense, and if they succeed in their main objective. which is to remove the g1ut, or if other caus- es remove the glut, the chief in centiva which now operates them will disappear.
 There will remain the incidental long term social reforms which 1t may be possible to consolidate and maintain by edicating public opin- ion and by the pressure of labor organization But if that is to be done, those who are administering these experiments should realize that once the glutted markets are freed, their powers of compulslon over producers will vanish. If they have not won their confidence, if they have over-reached themselves in the use of their powers, if th3y are the dupes of the fallacy that lover production is permanent condition, they will provoke sen- tlmental reaction which will sweep away not only the restrictions on production but the social reforms as we'll
 .s That the time may be much nearer at hand than most of us imagine when glut gives way to relative scarcity is by no means unlikely. AS an indicator of what may be in the offing, it might be noted that in 1883 the per capita production of the six grain crops in the United States has been the lowest on record and that the phys ical volume of crops, forest prod ucts. lumber, minerals and power per capita has not been so low in this century. So it is probably in order to realize that while we have been appalled, by the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty, we are in some danger of embrac- ing the greater paradox that we can become rich by creating scar ,itv