The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-10-17
SCIENCE AND THE
NEW DEAL


One Of the first acts of the
Roosevelt administration was the
reduction Of all government ex-
penditures for scientific research.
Hundreds Of trained technicians
and research scientists were dis
missed, important scientific work
was ended or drastically curtailed.
and the whole pace of scientific
activity showed a marked slscken-
ing. The only fields of scientific
endeayor that were unaffected by
this sabotsging Of reasearch were
those that were intimately connect
ed with the Administrations prep
arations for war and conquest.
The retrogression Of government
scientific activity under the new
deal was not admitted by the
apologists for capitalism They ig-
ncred such facts as unemployment
among technical and scientific
workers; they passed over the
deliberate contraction of research.
Instead there was a great deal of
talk that the new deal would bring
on a great golden age of science
and that the scientists would lead
the American people out Of the
crisis to the promised land Of
plenty.
After twenty months of the new
deal the scientific representatives
CT the Administered have at last
admitted that the scientist h S
been completely ignored by Roose-
velt Unemployment among tech
nicians is larger than ever. In New
York City, for example, 90 per cent
Of architects are unemployed. The
chemist who is lucky enough to
land job works for a bootlegger
or for pirate gold and silver con-
Germ engaged in smuggling precious
metals into the country. At one
large engineering school the grad
yates of the last four CLASSES nave
been unable to get a single en-
cheering position.
THE situation has become so
L desperate that certain of the
reactionary scientists who are di-
rectly connected with the admins
tration cooked up a very preten-
tious plan to put scientific research
on its feet again. An examination
of this plan which is called the
Recovery Program of Science Prog
ress reveals that it is nothing but
a futile gesture, designed mainly
to carry on the illusion that the
new deal has something TO offer
to the technician and scientist
The plan was sponsored by the
National Research Council and
various technical societies. It was
drawn up by DR.. Karl T. Compton
of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and Alfred D. Finn,
the director of the Engineering
Foundation.
The underlying concept Of the
plan was taken from the planned
direction Of scientific research in
the Soviet Union with the funda-
mental difference, that it is I'M
realizable in capitalist economy
1t was the purpose Of the Recovery
Program of Science Progress to put
unemployed scientists to work solv-
ing important technical and scien-
tific problems. Over a period OF six
years the modest sum of $4,000, 900
was to be spent. The term mod
est" is not inaccurate when one
remembers that the German dye
trust spent almost as much money
in developing synthetic indigo for
commercial purposes. And by com
parison with the s250,00oO0O that
the Soviet Unicn spent last year
for research purposes, the sum de-
sired by Compton and his associ-
ates was certainly not staggering.
Nevertheless, even this modest
proposal was turned down by the
administration on the grounds that
il had no authority to spend money
on research. This is the same ad-
ministration that gave the big
bankers and industrialists billions