Evening star., 1934-09-30
Continued From First Page.)


OF an age of scarcity. Our enterprise
has been new; our economics has been
old. We must either shove our en-
terprise back to our economics or
bring our economics abreast of our
enterprise.
There is more than the profits Of
the induStrialist at stake in this is
sue. The social stability of the Amer
lean future is involved.
If the toiling millions can be con-
WINGED that greater happiness can be
found by declaring a moratorium on
scientific progress, throwing the brakes
on chronological advance declining to
use to the full the vast resources of
modern power, and deliberately reduc-
irg the enterprise of the Nation to
SIMPLER and more easily manageable
dimensions. we'll and good. If that is
what they want! But that is not what
they want. They hunger to have full
human advantage of the utmost this
age of science, technology and power
production is equipped to bring them
in comfort, convenience and liberation
OF spirit.
OillN lNO llOW OPCll
to us. We can deliberately scale our
enterprise down to more easily man.
ageable dimensions or we can put our
brains to the business of making such
readjustments in our political, social
and economic policies as will enable
us to take full human advantage Of
this age of science. technology and
power production We can rest con-
tent with an economics of scarcity or
accept the challenge to construct an
economics of plenty. The first choice
Is unworthy of the American tradi-
ton; the second choice would mean
that the spirit of the pioneers is not
dead in U.S.
To me, the most disturbing fact of
the time is the number of Americans,
in high position and low, who are fall
ing victim to defeatist mood, appar-
emily assuming that progress has come
TO a dead end, that science and tech
nology have been too efficient in pro-
ducing a limitleSs output at low prices,
and that the thing to do is to plan a
lesser output at higher prices.
Restriction Called Reaction.
To restrict production and to raise
prices as general policy is, to me, not
liberalism but reaction, not statesman
ship but surrender, not creative ad-
vance but cowardly retreat That way
lies the subsidizing of inefficiency.
That way lies the sabotage of superior
management that knows how to bring
both the cost of production and the
price of products down. That way lies
a permanent and perilous lowering of
living standards for the swarming mil
lions. It was not for this that the pio-
neers builded their blood and sacri-
fee into the foundations of this re-
public. More goods at lower prices,
not fewer goods at higher prices, is the
logical goal
To me it is incredible that in a
world of tragically untitled human
needs we should now set out upon the
quixotic attempt to increase welfare
by destroying wealth or declining to
create it. Our ancestors fought
valiantly over the centuries to conquer
famine. Are We now to say that their
conquest has been too decisive? After
the sweat and science of generations
have brought us out of an economy
of scarcity into an economy of plenty,
are We to confess that we are. in
capable of managing plenty and delib-
erately legiSlate modified famine?
I am quite aware that human need
Is not effective economic demand un-
less it is equipped with purchasing
power. I insist only that it is the first
obligation alike of economic leader
an economy of plenty. to refuse to
consider reversion even to a modified
scarcity until it has exhausted its in
genuity in devising ways and means
of translating existing human need
into effective economic demand
Believes New Marts Exist.
If suddenly some vast new market
should be discovered, capable of alb
sorbing the existing and potential sur
plus of our industrial and agricultural
production, our worries would be over,
the wheels of industry would hum a
new national anthem and the tractors
would lumber with ponderouS gayety
across our broad acres. Is such a mar
ket diScoverable? l think it is.
While I take no stock in the new
cult of Little Americans who are turn
ing their backs upon the rest of the
world and preaching a doctrine of
contained nationaliSm 1 am quite
aware that no such market is likely
to be found abroad in the decade i'm
mediately before us. We shall find
the major clew to the conquest of our
difficulties at home. There is a vast
new market, an unexploited business
Eldorado, in our midst if business and
industrial leadership will but see it
and set seriously about its creative
development. This unexpected Edo
RADIO of American business and in
duStry is made up of the millions who
today are too poor to buy beyond the
bare subsistence level. Private capi-
taliSmS Surest guaranty of permanent
and prosperous survival lies in the
conquest of poverty on this continent.
AS use the term poverty 1 do not
mean utter destitution. l mean an
income insufficient to provide the
minimum of goods and services es-
sential to the maintenance of decency,
health and comfort.
In so far as statistical averages re-
fleet reality, some 10000 900 American
families, comprising perhaps 33 per
cent Of our population, were in pow
erty in the sense of being unable or
barely able to finance the minimum
requirements of subsistence at the
height of the prosperity of the boom
decade.
Better Living May Be Key.
Since 1929 the situation has grown
more rather than less serious. AS the
depression deepened, income dropped
faster than living cost; and under sin
cere but not always closely correlated
recovery efforts living costs have risen
faster than income.
In the American families now living
at these economic levels is to be found
the vast unexploited market to the
effective development of which busi-
ness and industrial leadership should
bring its highest genius
have rapidly waning confidence in
purely political schemes for equipping
u