The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-04-07


The faith of business men in
rugged individualism, in profits
unlimited and in the divine right
Of big business to call on govern
ment for help in case Of need,
while at the same time, govern
mcnt was to stay out of business
under all other conditions, repre-
sented views so firmly held as to
be beyond mere logic and in the
realm of the transcendental.
At one time, it was a part of the
business mans creed to believe in
the ten-hour day. More recently
some of them with equal fervor
have come to believe in the thirty
hour week.
A Pennsylvania congressman,
who has on his factory pay roll
several hundred men. told me re-
Gently almost with an air of re-
ligiOus conviction that the way to
stop unemployment was to put
such a tax on all forms of i'm
proved machinery that we would
all be forced to go back to more
primitive ways of doing things.
LIS solution for the farm prob
Il Il lem was to put such a tax
on tractors and other improved
agricultural machinery that farm
ers would be forced to depend al
most exclusively on animal and
hand labor With all the fervor
of our Protestant forefatherS, he
preached the doctrine of the SIM
pie life with regular, long, hard
hours of work with simple tools.
He wanted to turn back the
hands of time, to encourage fru-
gality and thrift and to bring
about the accumulation of capital
without encouraging the invest
ment of that capital in the i'm
proved methods which he felt had
been our nemesis.
This mans attitude, which
doubtless represents that of mil
lions, has in it some real truth
but, of course, it is as theoretical
and visionary in many respects as
the view of the most unworldly
professor or minister of the Cos
pei. Many business men in the
depths of their religious fervor
have created new devils and new
symbols. They hurl the word
"chiseler" with terrible Jagged
force at any one who disagrees
with them.
Any one who points out that
unduly high profits serve to I'M
balance productive power and con-
sumptive power and that, there
fore, the government so far as it
influences profits through codes
and agreements, of necessity has a
real interest in the way in which
profits may react on the stability
OF the industry under consider
alton as well as the national well
fare-iS likely to be called a Red
with the greatest intensity of con-
viction, as though the devil him
self were being spoken of.
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I HAVE listened to business men
Il talk about the red devils in
my own department and I know
their intensity and understand
the extent to which their analysis
departs from the reasonable into
the field of an emotional OBJ
scurantism, Semi-religious in ma
ture.
There are certain things which
business men hold sacred which
center around the profit motive
and which they look on as axio-
matte and not to be questioned
under pain of financial death.
and in the old days, under pain
of political death and social os-
traciSm.
L could say many complimentary
things about the religion" of the
business man, about their natural
goodness of heart. the long hours
and intensity with which they
labor. the fortitude of the smaller
business men under impossibly
trying conditions and the gen.
crosby of many of the larger bust
ness men when they have made
great profits.
Under a machine civilization
producing goods for transporta-
ton over wide areas of land and
operating under monetary Sys-
tenn based largely on the debt
credit mechanism, the unrestricted
profit motive brings on an an
archy terrible to behold. Business
men themselves are now more
or less recognizing this and are
striving desperately to perfect
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