The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-02-07

10 investigate any further. A prof
bate, has the support of the two
to the layman who has no time t.
question.
For how are we ever to make
reject Endorsements based on prolo
national inquiry?
AS a matter of fact. the easie,
treaty should be ratified is to look
nave been presented by Senator w
ADLER or more public-spirited men
IN the senate than Mr.. Wagner.
But if ever there was lame per-
Torrance, it is Mr.. Wagner'S min
ority report.
1t is so lame that I am almost
inclined to suspect that the senator
is opposing the treaty because he
thinks it is his conventional duty
to protect" the Port of New York
from the supposed competition of
the sea-way.
Mr.. Wagner objects first of all
on the theory that the new deal
has given up the notion that
foreign markets are of any account.
Even if that were true, which it is
not, the argument would be a BOOM
erang, for how is the senator ever
going to make a case for using
federal money to improve New
York harbor He then objects be-
cause the cheaper rates on ships
will play "havoc" with railroads.
THERE are two things to be said
IL about that. One is that the
railroads have been playing havoc
With themselves throughout the de-
preston by holding up rates at an
uneconomic level, and, as they are
beginning to see, if their rates came
down they would do more business.
But the more important argument
is that cheaper transportation for
the interior of the continent will in
the long run increase the volume
OF commerce; the fear that it will
ruin the railroads is based on the
fallacy that the volume of COM
n1erce is fixed quantity which has
to be divided up.
It is not fixed. Commerce in
creases when costs are reduced The
effect of this seaway should be to
increase the total of all goods that
have to be transported, and there
lore the amount of goods which
railroads can transport more eff
GENTLY than ships.
Mr.. Wagner'S third objection is
that the cost to the United States
will be not $277,OO0,OOO but $573.-
100000. Let us suppose he knows
more than the engineers. Still. the
argument is poor one. The CITY
OF New York in the years between
1927 and 1881 spent $3.50 100000 on
SubWayS to carry its population to
and from work. Surely the United
States is entitled to spend at least
as much on system of transporta-
ton which would be Immediately
available to the people of about six
teen states.
1t is strange to hear Mr.. Wagner,
who has been a pioneer calling for
public works, declaring that this is
public work which is "too extrava-
CANT
The argument is so feeble that it
is ineXplicable except on the theory
that Mr.. Wagner thinks it his duty
to go on record for the alleged in
terestS Of New York. But if that is
what he is doing, it may be re-
called that Mr.. Roosevelt is a New
Yorker, too, and has twice been
Governor of this state, and presum-
ably has no intention of injuring it.
t. n
A PART from the intrinsic merits
L n of the project, there is a COM
polling reason why this would be an
appropriate and dramatic moment
to decide to carry it out. For nearly
four years this country and the rest
of the world have been over
whelmed with the sense that there
were no great enterprises left, that
the period of construction was over,
that we were sunk under the weight
Of useless wealth, and that all that
was left to do was to accept eco
nomic defeat and make the best
of it.
This is the psychosis of every
great depression, and a nation does
not emerge from depression until
it breaks away from it and begins
to believe again that there is more
to be done in the future than was
ever done in the past.
To ratify this treaty now is to
affirm our faith in the future, to
act in the spirit of enterprise, to do
the same sort of thing which men
did when they spanned the con-
tinent with railways, when they
opened Suez and Panama, when
they believed as all vital peoples
must that the breaking down of
the barriers to the movement Of
commerce is in the long view
benefit to every one.
We have had quite enough of the
idea we must not plant, must not
manufacture, must not build, must
not expand, must not work, that we
have too much machinery, too
many people, too much capital, too
much land, too many roads, too
many buildings, and that our only
hope is to restrict, reduce, limit,
control, diminish, tear down, pillow
under, close down, rae, dump,
throw away.
This is a good treaty and a good
project because it is based on the
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