The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-09-05
PROFITEERS, BEWARE

TWO things are necessary to make the New
u Deal a passable success. One is enthusiast
tic support of the ideals Of Mr.. Roosevelt and
his more forward-looking advisers. The Presi-
dent needs encouragement in the face OF the
mutterings and double-crossings of the pirates
and profiteers who reluctantly have given lip
loyalty to his program.
The second necessity is a frank analysis
of apparent defects in the New Deal which
will facilitate revision before it is too late.
The best comment of this sort which has ap-
peared recently is an article by John T. Flynn
on THE New Partnership in Common Sense.
After expressing his admiration for the per-
sonal idealism of our President and the gen.
eral aspirations of the economic planners, he
examines into how far the NRA measures up
to the conceptions embodied in the planning
proposals of even Professor TugweH. ~
There is no more competent writer on
American economic and financial conditions
than Mr. Flynn, so we may take his criticisms
with appropriate seriousness.
Mr. Flynn finds that the great danger in
the MIRA, as at present conceived and admin
istered is it's failure to curb profits to such de-
gree as is necessary to assure adequate pur-
chasing power and sufficient consumption to
get the capitahstic system on its feet.
The fact that too great proportion of the
social income was drained off in profits, at the
expense of workers and farmers, before 1929
led us into the collapse of that year. Mr..
hot far
visions are made in the NF1A as practice and
experience require, the best that we can expect
is the delay of sweeping business collapse
which inevitably will lead to a worse disin~
tegration of capitalism.
The fair-minded opponents of economic
planning, from George Soul to Rexford G.
Tugweu had in mind a plan which would be
the result of the collaboration of all eco
no1nic groups and would comprehend con-
troll of wages, interest, production, prices,
labor conditions, industrial operations and
profits.
THE NRA provides for type Of planning
which is solely the product of the employer
class and merely allows labor and the con-
sumner to protest-with no assurance that
their protests will have much weight"
If we are to have true social co-partner-
ship the plan can not be allowed overwhelm-
ingly to favor either employer or worker. 1t
must be something which will allow all of us
to sink or swim together.
The consumers-the largest of all groups
are in an even weaker position than labor.
They are unorganized and woefully and in
adequately represented.
Very important and onlinous indeed is the
fact that there is no provision whatever for
the systematic control of profiteering. Hence,
when the employers forget their contrite spirit
and reform resolutions of the dark days from
1929 to 1888, we might have a period of price
skyrocketing which will wreck the whole NEA
program.
Most fundamental. the trouble with the
NRA is that it savors of the old-fashioned
scarcity economy" and aims to solve our eco
nomic problems by curbing production rather
than by stimulating consumption.
1T moves on the problem from the wrong
direction. It proceeds upon the theory that
We must curtau production instead Of expand
ing consumption. It still is under the donin-
ion Of that false and dangerous notion that
We grow too much wheat and cotton and make
too many shoes and too much clothing and
too many homes for this country.
I'VE do not produce enough houses for our
millions Of workers to live in. They must exist
in the cast-off novels of other men. We do
not produce enough suits of clothes for half
our male population. In 192e-our biggest
year-we turned out twenty million suits of
clothes in a nation that needed fifty Millions
David Lamar. the Wolf of Wall Street.