The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-12-13
Second Section
1t
Seems
to
Me

AN Me
BY Haywood BrOun
NEW YORK. Dec. 13.-The
~ boy who was in the habit Of
CRYING Wolf Wolf" was asked to
give an interview concerning the
government under which he lived.
The trouble with this admins
tration," said the young man, is
that It does not promote conf
dence. Business is ready and
even eager to go ahead but it IS
afraid Of the experimentation in
Washington Things were very
different under the Republican
leadership Of Mr.. Hoover. Then
everybody always knew just where
he was standing"
OF course there is something in
what the boy said. Millions Of
men knew just where they we're
standing under the Hoover re-
gime. If they didn't it was called
to their attention by the cop, who
said, Move along, you, all the
tickets have been given out al
ready"
The only thing that puzzles me
is the fact that the very men who
do most of the hollering about
dire destruction and impending
disaster are the very ones who as
sure us that all would be hotsy-
totsy if only We could Danish the
thought of fear
: l have read hundreds Of letters
from Sound Money Man" Lover
of the Constitution, "Admirer of
Rutherford B. Hayes" and Nos
talgic for Chester A. Arthur" Al
though these missives appear in
many papers of varying political
conception all of them sound
strangely as if they were written
by the same man Can it be pos
sible that DR. Oliver Mitchell
Wendell Sprague has bought him
self a mimeograph machine?
CONFIDENCE was one OF the
~ things stressed by Professor
Sprague. Whereupon he pro-
ceeded to give the most gloomy
picture of the immediate state of
government bonds and predict the
failure of national financing. His
predictions turned out to be in
correct, but that still leaves him
In his post as the great economist.
Great economists often are
wrong because they approach the
problems of finance without hav-
ing given any study to the field
of thought upon which finance is
chiefly dependent.
Before President Roosevelt APP
points anybody to the treasury
he should not ask the receptive
candidate whether he is familiar
with John Stuart Mill, Ricardo
and Walter Lippmann. Rather
he should inquire just what the
statesman knows about Freud and
Jung and Adler.
The gold standard, for instance
Is not an eternal, economic verify.
1t is a complex lodged in the I'M
conscious of bankers and business
men who we're frightened as
small boys by the spectre of Will
liam Jennings Bryan.
am minded today to indulge in
q few economic predictions of my
Nl1 a
alien to any considered by DR..
Sprague or Mr.. Ogden Mills. The
traditional economist is always
intent upon the movement of
capital goods. see recovery
clearly in view not on the basis
of the figures about steel tonnage
nor of car loadings. but because
the hotels of New York are
iammed for the first time in
many years, because Broadway
has at least four smash hits in
its list and because once more
there are night clubs in which it
is difficult to get a table on a
Saturday night.
IN other words I am basing my
l. prediction of returning pros
perity on the basis of the vast
squirt in luxury spending 1t is
quite true, of course, that the in
dustries which supply these
economic trivia employ COM
paratively small number of men.
1t is also undeniable that the
spenders themselves are recruited
from the upper and middle classes.
But from the psychological point
of view these straws are ample to
indicate that fractionally. at least.
a portion of the American public
has ceased to look out upon the
world with glazed eyes and NUT
ter, Where am 70"
Under any circumstances yet
known to the United States, pros
perity has been a comparative
term. 1t never has meant that
everybody was we'll above the line
of subsistence. l am not naive
enough to see the end of poverty
1li1UbI SUITE SAlStlO dNtJuotAAACAlb "a
the competitive system. Indeed 1
think that better times will be
extremely fugitive if we behave
as absurdly as We did during the
Coolidge gold rush.
Now is the time for all good
men to make experimentation
much broader If very slight
reduction in hours and a fairly
trivial advance in wages have
brought palpable benefits it would
seem logical to press still further
in this direction. General Hugh
Johnson has said that the thirty
hour week must come in time,
but at the moment it might be
fatal. A columniSt is in no posi-
ton to quarrel about hours. How
about a nice little compromise
settling for a time upon the
thirty-f1ve- hour week?
Confidence has been raised from
q sick bed 1t can be kept upon
its feet but only if the command
continues to be Forward"
Copyright. 1888. by The Timesl