The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-10-25

4lOlii lClltt WlllSi 10 d olldll ITdC-
 ton, in retail shops. Now the
 manufactured goods sold to work ingmen in retail shops are made by the least depressed of all the industries. The really depressed
 industries, which contribute the oulk of unemployment, do not pro- duce the kind of goods sold to workingmen in retail shops. There fore, it was never possible to cure unemployment by relatively trifling increases in pay rolls.
 There arc number of different ways of providing these assertions.
 They are not disputed, I think, by students of the problem, however much these students may differ on what are the most promising reme-
 lies. To fix the matter in our minds, we may say that there are about 30 million workers outside of agriculture Of these about one
 third, or 10 million, were unem- ployed in May. At least two-thirds of these unemployed workers be- long to industries which produce goods that are not sold in retail shops They belong to the con- struction, transportation and ma chine-making industries-to what are called the durable and capital goods industries.
 These figures SHOW that the main body of the industrial depression in human terms nearly seven out of the ten million unemployed does not lie in the industries which he N. R. A. has stimulated by in- creases of pay rolls The deeply depressed industries are those which depend directly not upon the pur- chasing power of pay rolls but upon the purchasing power of in- vested savings and bank credit. It is from the placing of mortgages, the sale of bonds, the use of cor porate reserves, and the making of bank loans that the initial pur- chasing power has to come to put back to work approximately seven out of the ten million unemployed
 This is now generally recognized in Washington and elsewhere That is why, within the past month, the emphasis has been shifted from the N. R. A. to the expansion of credit, to the revival of the capital market, and the speeding up of the public works program. Does this mean, as some persons are saying, that the N R. A. has been a fail ure? Far from it. If we remem- Der that the Administration IS working both for Recovery and for Reconstruction, we may say of the N. R. A. that it's contribution to Recovery was greatly exaggerated, but that as measure of Recon struction it is magnificent achievement. To have introduced into the vast complexity of Amer ican industry as much law and order as these codes promise, to have impressed upon a whole peo- pie so many new enlightened stand ards, to have created the frame work within which industries can cooperate, can plan, and can po- lice themselves, and to have done i this in two months is a very real and substantial installment of the New Deal
 The only fundamental criticism l to be made of the N. R. A. is that | 1t was mistakenly regarded as a l major move toward Recovery was not clearly understood as in es- sence a move toward Reconstruc- tion, and that therefore real moves for Recovery, which should have been made simultaneously by other agencies of the Government, were | delayed Some time has been lost, | but it will not be wholly lost f we can learn from the experience to distinguish more definitely be- tween the measures which will re- vive and the measures which will reform.
 We can perhaps maXe cne mat ter clearer to ourselves if we ask ourselves: How did it happen that the Administration fell even tenn porarily into the error of thinking that Recovery could come through a quick expansion of pay rolls? Il shall venture guess. Among the closest advisers of the President are men who have devoted much study to the defects of our economic order before 1929. Now it is clear that in the great industrial ex- pansion of the Twenties the real earnings of labor and of agriculture did not keep pace with the growth of profits. These enlarged profits
 were plowed back into capital equipment which became capable