Evening star., 1934-08-12
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

present recession in business Is
not to be told BY any one index.
- nor by emphasis on any one
condition The sum of all the
indexes, reasonably interpreted, shows
a pretty grave slump. cite one slight
and partial index. not because 1t Is
necessarily conclusive, but rather be-
cause 1t Is interesting.
The price OF United States Steel
stock at the lowest point of the de-
preston was 2Iis. The price as write
this Is about IS. Superficially, the
reader will say there has been q rise
OF more than so per cent In the price
OF steel stock. But bear In mind the
change President Roosevelt has made
in the gold content Of the dollar. When
steel was 2lh the price Of gold, as
fixed by the Government. was $20B7
an ounce. Therefore a share OF steel
stock was at that time worth roughly
an ounce of gold. Today, since Mr..
Roosevelt's devamation of the dollar,
the price fixed by the Government for
gold is $35 an ounce; therefore today a
share OF United States Steel stock Is
again worth roughly an ounce In gold.
AS respects this one index. confessedly
not conclusive, conditions are just
where they we're at the bottom OF the
depression.
Much-but by no means all-of our
recovery is subject to this same illu-
sion. Changing the gold content oil
the dollar from what was formerly
TO put II this way--l00 cents down to
SO .O6 cents. was much like changing
the inch-content of the foot, like say
ing that a foot, instead Of IL inches,
shall now be inches. BY that simple
device all trees become taller, all build
ings bigger. This, say. accounts
much for our betterment. so far as our
betterment Is expressed in figures on
paper.
Definitely on Way Up.
The gold devaluation accounts for
much, but not for all. Relative TO the
bottom of the depression, we are a
good distance on the way upward. the
fundamental. permanent and depend
able fact Is that recovery Is under way.
What people think about when they
complain OF the present slump Is a
comparison between the present and
last year. between August, 1884, and
August. 1888. And relative to August,
1888, things are not so good. When
Mr. Roosevelt was about to leave Tor
his vacation. on June 28. he felt conf
dent enough to ask, in his good-oy
radio speech, "Are you better on than
YOU were last year?" 1t is doubtful II
he would care to repeat that question
now on his return. The number OF
irritated noes" he would hear would
be disconcerting. j..
Yet let no one forget the central
fact. The country and the world are
on their way upward. 1t has been on
the way upward, slowly and often
imperceptibly, since June. 1882. That
was the low point of the depression.
The present retarding is q mere Incl
dent of the upward climb. Recovery
Is as inevitable now as depression was
four years ago. Governments and pol
iticians and theorists can no more
prevent the one than the other.
They can make recovery slower and
more dificult, and I think Mr.. Roose-
welt has done that by following the
radicals in his administration, BY de-
liberately holding recovery back until
there should be time to accomplish
what Mr.. Roosevelt calls-the words
sound very much as If Mr.. Roosevelt
had got them from Prof. Tugwell-"a
permanent readjustment Of many Of
our social and economic arrange
ments."
Mistakes of the Intellectuals.
Mr.. Roosevelt. acting upon the sd-
vice and urging of the intellectuals
around him, has made three serious
mistakes of policy. The first was the
determination to make fundamental
''readjustment," almost a revolution,
in our social system at time when
the country was In the depth Of de-
preston. The theory OF the INTEL
lectuals who urged Mr.. Roosevelt into
this course was that only when the
country Is sick would it be willing TO
accept reforms. That theory Is utterly
unsound The period when America
was most willing to bring about social
reforms was during the presidency Of
Theodore Roosevelt and for a few
years thereafter. from about 1904 to
about ls14-and that was a period Of
outstanding prosperity with more and
more gold coming out of the mines Of
the world, with wages and other prices
rising and with every attribute Of
material well-being.
The second fundamental mistake Of
Mr.. Roosevelt's administration was the
theory that abundance must be re-
duced, that plenty must be destroyed.
This theory was expressed in the plow-
ing under of cotton, the slaughter OF
young pigs and of sows about to bear
young, and the reductions Of acreage.
That this was a mistake is now made
vivid by the drought. Politically, Mr..
Roosevelt and the Democrats will suf-
fer seriously from this. II enables his
critics to say: They found want in