Evening star., 1934-12-21
RECOVERY PLANS
OF BUSINESS HIT
Hopkins Leads Wisecracks
Against Program Drafted
by Industry.
by DAVID LAWRENCE.


criticism is about all the 100 business
leaders of America got from various
administration officials for their ef-
forts in trying to work out a program
of cooperation between Government
and business.
And the wisecracking was led by
Harry Hopkins, relief administrator
who didn't like the proposals that re-
lief be confined to direct aid, rather
than made!%ork, which might un-
dermine the jobs Of those now en-
ployed by introducing elements OF
chaotic competition.
What President Roosevelt thinks OF
the 11-point program presented oy
business men after their meeting at
White Sulphur Springs has not yet
been revealed, and, in sense, only
what he thinks counts anyway, though,
to be sure, the attitude of the radicals
and Government ownership advocates
and socialistically-minded officials In
his own encourage is what is blocking
an understanding between Govern
ment and business.
M Common Ground to Start.
Maybe it was too much to expect
that administration officials, who have
made up their minds that the system
of private initiative and profit, except
for rigid regulation, is all wrong, would
accept any program from business
groups. But it was not a mistake Tor
the business men, nevertheless, 10
draw I'D such a program. 1t makes
matter of record what they believe is
essential to economic recovery and
answers the oft-heard query well,
what would you do, or what program
do you offer?"
The essential difference between the
plan evolved by the business men and
the left wingers in the administration
is that they have no common ground
to start with on what is or is not
sound economics. The plan offered
by the 100 men chosen from the
leaders of the National Association OF
Manufacturers and the Chamber OF
Commerce of the United States was
repetition of what business men, large
and small, from one end of the coun-
try to the other, have been saying for
many months, namely that State
socialism and private operation OF
American business cannot be fused
without destroying the very fabric OF
employment that occupies the 35,000,-
900 who have jobs, as distinguished
from the 100000 who are idle.
The business men felt that they
could absorb the 10,000,0 900 in rela-
lively short time if the Government
would really cooperate in removing
various obstacles to recovery that were
specifically enumerated, and that
meantime, 1t would be less expensive
in the long run to furnish direct aid
to the needy.
Want to Keep Jobs.
Mr.. Hopkins now says that the idle
want work and not merely relief. He
Is right about that, but, on the other
hand, so do the people who now have
jobs want to keep them. No better
illustration could be given than the
two experiments proposed by Mr.
Hopkins to put the unemployed tc
work making mattresses or shoes. Nc
sooner had this been suggested when
1t was apparent that work now being
given existing factories would have to
be diminished and workmen laid of
Mr.. Roosevelt himself put q stop to
this sort Of uneconomic planning.
The conflict projecting the Govern
ment into various lines of business
under the guise of relief programs and
trying to build up private industry SO
it may absorb the unemployed as
heretofore is getting deeper every day.
The President is beset on every
side with evidences of these conflicts
He has sublime confidence that he can
reconcile them. But it is beginning
to look as If the forces inside the ad-
ministration and some of those out
side may push the President beyond
the point where he really wants to go
in financing projects that bring ruin
to investors and managers Of busi-
nesses and thus increase the number
of unemployed.
Program More Liberal.
It would have been a miracle If the
business leaders who met at White
Sulphur Springs had been able to
write q platform that would have re-
ceived even cordial, much less an
enthusiastic, reception from the promi-
nent New Dealers. 1t was hardly pos
sible for business men to abandon
convictions growing out Of day-by-
day experience with the unchanging
facts of system which the courts and
the constitutional system have sup
ported in the past. But anybody who
reads the platform carefully will see
that there are phrases here and there
which show much more liberal po-
sition than any group of American
business men would have been able
to get agreement on five years ago.
Fortunately or unfortunately, busi-
ness men, who have the responsibility
Of managing their properties and who
cannot look to Federal funds in the
way of doles to make up their deficits,
cannot be converted overnight to some
Of the reasoning processes used by
those administration officials who be-
lieve the emergency must last indefi-
nitely or that the economic system
must be completely rebuilt along the
lines of State socialism.
But Mr.. Roosevelt has encouraged
business men to give him their views.
He has the skill of conciliator and a
compromise maker extraordinary.
There will be meetings at the White
House next month with prominent
business men. For the present, how
ever, the official comments from the
Presidents aides will not bring that
friendly atmosphere which, immedi-
ately after the election, was so sensibly
sought by Mr.. Roosevelt. The Presi-
dent may not take some of his left
wing assistants seriously, but the busi-
ness men Of the country do.
Copyright. 1934.)