Evening star., 1934-03-27
Writ ASKS DELAY
|NSOC|AL REFORM
Urqes "Brain Trusters" to
Seek First to End
Depression.
ny the Associated Press.

Dy the Associated Press.
GARY, Ind, March 27.-Dr. Will
liam A. Writ, educator, said today
that brain trusters" should seek to
get us out of the depression first
and then bring up their social reform
legislation"
He told of Investigations which, he
said, led him to make his sensational
charges that some unnamed advisers
of the President admitted plotting
revolution.
The educator explained his views
only q few hours after he said he
had received a death threat from a
person signing himself "A Faithful
Member of the United States OF
America Royal Citizen Secret Society"
1t carried a Buffalo, N Y, postmark.
IF some one must be sacrificed to
make the people aware, I am will
ing" he said.
His charge that within two months
Congress will have signed away a
considerable part of the freedom of
the citizens was not a bolt from
the blue" he said, but was based
on information gathered over two
years.
Wanted Text Rewritten.
The information, he declared, came
in series of controversies and cor
respondence growing out Of an at
tempt OF his to have civic and his
tory text books rewritten to include
evidence of how the laws of economics
work. He wanted that done so stu
dents could learn the difficulties at
tending rearrangement of the price
structure.
"If," he said, 1--WE had taught what
happened. economically. after the
Civil War, citizens would have had
some intimation of what was going
on after the World War The eco
nomic adventures were similar
1T was out of the correspondence
and investigation and labor to this
end that I gained the information of
what the brain trusters are so peril
ouSly near doing"
DR.. Writ said economics is not too
esoteric for high school students and
the man in the street. 1t has been
made to sound difficult by professors.
U. S. Would Control Business.
"Our problem is this Bills now
before the Congress would in effect
institute an excessive regimentation
OF business and industry by the Gov
ernment. Thus, if you wanted, we'll
say, to go into the grocery business
you would first have to get the per-
mission of your Government. But if
the Government had decided that
there already were enough grocery
stores, you could not enter the busi-
ness.
Fine for those already in the
grocery business, but how about those
on the outside?
The Government plans to retire
from production several thousands of
acres OF marginal land. What are
the workers of that marginal land to
do to make a living? They are in
effect prohibited by their Government
from free bargaining for the exchange
OF services for dollars. And since they
cant swap dollars they haven't, trade
is restricted.
I am interested in giving the citi-
zens of the country a chance to vote
on clear-cut issues of social reform
II the brain trust wants to bring them,
without the smoke screen of depres-
sion war, into the open.
we submitted to the temporary
measures of the N R. A. and recovery
legislation much as We were glad, in
the World War, to abide by martial
law. But who would think of making
martial law permanent, to go on and
on in peace time.
Price Trouble Is Cause"
"The business of the brain trusters
Is to get us out of the depression first
and to then bring up their social re-
form legislation, not to confuse them,
befuddle the public and so saddle it
with economic martial law that will
endure in economic peacetime.
"The plain truth of the cause Of our
economic trouble now is the disar-
rangement of the price structure
That means this, that one class of
workers Is able to exchange its goods
and services for a number of dollars
that in no reasonable way compares
with the number of dollars another
class can get for its goods and serv-
ices and thus is not able to swap dol
lars on the same basis
DR.. Writ thinks it not unreasonable
to foresee, in the excessive regimenta-
tion he predicts, the erection of tariff
barriers between States, huge masses
of permanently unemployed, and other
snarled problems similar to those
that once plunged the world into the
dark ages and might do it again.