The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-08-08
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

| a impressive obituary of the NRA was
L n written by competent and friendly experts
a little while before the Supreme Court prodded
! the corpse. 1t now appears in book form under
| the title industrial Planning Under Codes
| Harper, SO. 1t is edited by George B. Galloway.
| VINO was one OF the assistant deputy admins
traitors. Mr. Galloway contributes the earlier
| part OF the book on the general character of
| the NRA, and then experts from the various
industries analyze the operation of the NRA
Within each of the major industries of the
country. linen there comes a final section deal
Ing with the future of industrial planning
under governmental supervision
II the authors are sympathetic critics of the
MIRA, they are also honest critics and do not
hesitate to point out its defects. In general it
is the impression given by the book that the
MIA was designed to promote immediate re-
coVery rather than to guide long time economic
planning. The value of the NRA must hence
be judged with respect to its relation to the
progress OF recovery rather than with respect
to its promotion of economic planning AS a
recovery eXpedient, the MIRA had all but out
lived its usefulness before Mr. Roosevelt was
| fortunate enough to have the Supreme Court
step IN and appear as the obstenSible destructive
| opponent of economic planning
When the NRA actually came into existence,
it had to answer two questions First, would it
be mainly concerned with short-tme planning.
designed to get us out of the depression hastily,
or, would 1t devote itself chiefly to longer range
programs intended to prevent or minimize fu-
ture depreSsions? Second would the Federal
government be the junior or senior partner
along with business enterprise in the process of
| economic planning.
|
ME realities which emerged are we'll de-
! n scribed by Mr.. Galloway:
mo explicit answer was ever given to the
first question. The NRA and its research and
| planning division were pre-occupied with the
immediate emergency rather than long-term
planning, although the MIRA instituted or
quickened what will probably prove to be per-
manent reforms in respect of child labor, sweat
shops, homework and unethical trade practices.
The manifold complications that developed in
| the course of code making, enforcement and
amendment left little, if any, time for consider
| alton of long-run plans.
"AS to the second question, it became evident
from the public utterances of MIRA officials,
| from the failure to crack down. and from the
| lapsing of the license power that the business
| interest would remain dominant in the famous
partnership, despite loud protests of business
men against RECOMMENDATION
THE progress Of planning in NRA was also
affected, for better for worse by the frequent
turnover in the directorate of the planning divi-
sion, the resultant travail of repeatedly break
ing in new men and the discipline of their
previous experience. Under these conditions it
was not surprising If the conduct of the divi-
sion was continuing source of establishment
to economists and dismay to planners"
THOUGH the NRA produced neither recovery
l. nor longtime economic planning, the book
inclines to the conclusion that important socio-
| economic ideas ideas were incidentally con-
tributed through our experience with the MIRA
Chief among these are the ideas of function
al group representation in the making of eco.
nomic policy; of setting minimum economic
standards by means of collective group negotia-
ton under government supervision and control;
and of limiting the competitive process within
socially determined bounds"
| In conclusion Lewis Lorwin contends quite
reasonably, that there is a profound social and
economic necessity for a new NRA, which would
be a National Reconstruction Administration,
| that would subordinate immediate and mush-
room recovery to the far more fundamental is
sue of long range social planning under a
regimes of free competition.
| The Stock Exchange has been an institution
| intima tely related to New Deal controls Its
place in American economic life is admirably
presented by Alfred L. Bernheim and associates
in their work, The Security Markets" Twen-
tieth Century Fund publication $50. An attack
on the tariff views of Secretary Wallace is con-
| tanned in Prof. Alonzo E. Taylors THE New
Deal and Foreign Trade macmillan, 49, The
heart Of the injunction issue in labor cases is
presented by G. o. Swayzee in his Contempt of
Court in Labor Injunction Cases columbia
University Press, $2.25) Where America is likely
to wind up if the New Deal proves a flop is in
dicated in John L. Spivak's excellent reporting
of the American scene in his America Faces
the Barbados" (Covici-Friede. $3.50.
There has been movement for men TO ap-