The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-08-04
Today and Tomorro,c
Stop, Look and Listen!
By WALTER LIPPMANN

| In his radio speech Genera
 Johnson announced that the bull
 of all our industry has alread, joined the campaign to raise wag
 es and reduce hours More spe officially he announced that practi
 cally the whole of the iron anc steel, textile, automobile, bitumi nous coal, lumber, garment, ship. building and petroleum industrie.
 md in addition more than two hundred smaller industries hac joined or given assurance that they
 would join. This is, on its face a substantial response, although i scarcely touches the very great mass of small employers in tht neighborhoods and suburbs of cit. ies. in the towns and villages oi the country.
 Humanly speaking the question is whether the Administration in- tends to concentrate it's efforts or those industries which have come forward because they are sufficient | ly organized to qualify ultimately under the more detailed codes, or whether it really means to make
 this drive universal" and carry its threats and its appeals to all the little workshops and stores throughout the length and breadth of the land. AS a matter of justice and in its practical consequences it will make a vast difference wheth- CT the Administration decides to
 be discriminating and Selective | spending it's efforts where results
 are possible, or whether it really means to incite the people to bad
 ger and boycott those who can
 not take part.
 | The case for increasing the real l income of the workers in the basic
 industries operated by large cor
 porations is excellent. Thus, for ex-
 ample, if one compares wholesale
 prices, wages, and net profits of the 536 chief business corporations
 in 1926 and in 1929, it appears that in that boom period whole sale prices fell 3.5 per cent, wages rose 1.8 per cent while net profits rose 25 per cent. Here was an ob-
 vious profit imitation in the sense that profits outstripped the pur- chasing power of farmers, miners and wage earners. Such a profit in- flation led inevitably to over-in- vestment in relation to the con- suming power of the community, and was undoubtedly one of the major causes of the depression. Now there is good reason to think that during the past four years the leading industries have so greatly reduced their costs of production that with anything like the old volume they would quickly , earn enormous profits. There are indications of this in the rapidity I with which the Steel Corporation and General Motors have recently increased their net earnings 1t is clear, therefore, that for a sound and stabilized recovery, it is es- sential that there should be bet ter distribution of the earnings of , industries capable of making great
 profits. The better distribution should be had by raising wages, improving working conditions and in many instances by werin g prices.
 In so far as the blanket code is inspired by this conception of af- fairs, it is as sound as any highly generalized plan could be. The Ad-
 ministration may justly demand the participation of the large cor
 porate enterprises. Even when the scheme is difficult to apply in particular cases no great hardship or danger involved. For the larg- CT corporations and the trade as- sociations are in position to make representations in Washington and work out adjustments and compro-
 mises.
 Copyright, 1883, Ne'