Evening star., 1933-10-22
BY REXFORD GUY TUGWELL.


between the 6 cents pound the
farmer gets for beef cattle and the
Is to 70 cents pound the consumer
pays for it; between the wage the mill
worker gets for making a shirt and
the $3.50 or 81 that you and I pay
for it. More of that Is to 70 cents
pound for beef ought to get back
to the farmer. more of that $l.50 shirt
ought to get back to labor if We are
really to increase purchasing power
There were always three points of
focus in this effort. The frs. was to
raise farmers incomes: the second was
to secure more income for workers by
abolishing child labor and sweating,
by raising wage rates, and by spreading
employment: the third was to relieve
the burden of debt so that farmers and
home owners should not be dispossessed
and so that their future income might
be devoted to buying goods rather than
to paying off old debts which had
grown Gbnolmally because their cur
rent receipts had for so long fallen
below necessary expenditures.
1t looks like an anomaly at first to
say that workers and farmers incomes
are to be raised together and at once.
They make up the bulk of the coun-
try's income, it can be argued, and if
they share it between them. both can
not get larger share. The answer
to this Is that they do not get nearly
all the income and that it is quite
possible to expand what they do get
at the expense of the residual The
farm price of hogs, for example, de-
clined from 9 cents a pound in 1929
to 81 cents in 1882, yet the margin
for processing and distributing hog
products showed littlf reduction, and
retail meat prices fell relatively much
less than hog prices on the farm The
spread between farmer and consumer
actually Increased as prices to the
farmer fell. Whenever this happens
the purchasing power of both farmer
and consumer suffers.
Appropriate Slogan.
This is why reduce the spread" is
an appropriate slogan. AS to farmers,
the whole middleman crganization
can be looked at as selling organiza-
ton which has got completely out OF
hand IN recent years and has appro-
priated to itself a power in the markets
and command over prices which are
a greatly exaggerated return for the
function which is performed The
with general benefit.
The same is true of workers. There
has been, in the years just past, a
vast increase in the efficiency of work
The invention of new machines, the
improved application of power in in
dustry, the spread of scientific manage
ment and the improvement of man
agerlal control-all have contributed to
steadily lowered costs which ought to
have been registered in advantages 10
consumers so that the vast potentiali-
ties of the new industrial machine could
have been exploited to the utmost. If
they had-if wages had risen and the
prices of goods had been reduced-our
standard of living might easily have
been advanced to twice its present
level.
Instead of this, however, the gains
from efficiency have been was ed. What
was saved by better machines and
higher efficiency in the factory or in
the Office was spent in proliferating
services in expenditures for high
pressure selling, in defending price
levels which should have come down,
in overbuilding plants. and in furnish
ing funds for SPECTATORS. The spread
be.ween operating costs and retail
prices needs to be reduced just as much
as the spread between the prices which
farmers receive and those which con-
sumers pay.
This does not eA aust the possibili-
ties. In TACT, the best chance of all
lies In general increase in production.
This is by way of being lost sight of in
the present preoccupation with overca-
pacities. surpluses, reduction programs
and the like. The truth is, of course,
that We cannot have too great produc-
ton. 1t is goods which determine cur
level of living, and we must have more
1T
The problem is to find kind of social
and political organization which will
turn loose our vast powers.
Production Unbalanced.
The confusion here comes from the
fact that production is wrongly appor-
toned and balanced. For the amount
of industrial products produced, there is
too great production Of farm crops in
general. with the result that the ex-
changing of farm for industrial goods
leaves farmers at disadvantage. The
same thing is true of some industrial
trades. There is too great a production
in some compared to others, with result
ing dislocation. But there is not-and
this needs to be kept hold of-too much
OF everything
Our present effort to reduce farm
production is the result of an overca-
pacity calculated to feed vanished eX-
port trade 1t does not mean that a
vast capacity cannot be used Many
more farm products would be needed if
people had all they wanted to eat. The
new Surplus Relief Corporation goes di-
rectly to the easing of this problem.
Similarly, We need to find way to pro-
duce more and more of many things,
and we shall find it if industry can be
;t-r Ie %
goods to consumers cheaply. to forego
resistance to prices which are related to
Dictated costs to stop depending on con-
spend incomes already earned, and if
somehow the burdens of the past can
be reduced so that new income will not
go to the discharge of old debt.
1t is inevitable, if the new deal is to
succeed and to make its gains perma-
nent. that much of the administration S
effort will be spent on tasks which have
hitherto been thought of as politically
unrewarding. Giving in to this or that
interest. shaping governmental policy
so as slightly to favor one or another
section-these were the methods of the
old-style politics. To cut through this
lack of initiative to devise a positive
program into which any interest will
nave 10 III ltS CldllLS loI IeCCSI1Iioil' 10
a task that only political genius with a
high vision and steady pocu'ar support
co"'d undertake. and carry through
Every ore krowS by now that new
pure food and drugs act has been draft
ed-at least all thu businesses which
may be affected bv it. however remote
ly. are well aware of the fact. There
has been a coed deal Of adverse propa-
ganda and there will be more. The in
terests which have something to lose
will spare no pains to spread criticism
where it will do the most good. No
legitimate business will be hurt by the
proposed changes in the regulations but
the questionable ones will try to con-
vince all the others that some threat Is
intended and will try to organize as
powerful an opposition as can be man
AGED in this way. The question is
L dacira hle