Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-05-26
Administration Ending or Curtailing
Experiments That Have Failed to Work

dollar was to raise prices, make debts
easier to pay and thereby join N. r.
A. and pump printing as q depres-
sion destroyer.
But, in practice. the new dollar had
almost no effect on prices. Last years
drought was much more effective. The
new dollar did not stimulate foreign
trade to any marked extent. and so
far as the foreign trade experts of
the Government are concerned they
think 1t had bad effect on the trade
OF the world
So what? Mr.. Roosevelt now has
admitted privately that the effect was
not as expected. Henry Morgenthau,
Jr-, his Secretary of the Treasury, in
forms the world that the United
States will not stand in the way of
world sterilization of currencies. That
means a willingness on this country's
part to go back to the gold standard.
One more budding experiment now
ended involved the idea of using labor
Of the unemployed to produce goods
for the use Of the unemployed, utiliz-
@AAS cAA PAAo 10" ldlS anu
plus industrial machinery in the
process.
This is the idea of Upton Sinclair's
Epic" plan. If applied on a ma
tlonal scale 1t would give the cheapest
form of relief along with the highest
standard OF living for the unemployed,
but would involve creating a social
Htic state within a capitalistic state.
Harry Hopkins last Summer took up
this idea. The relief administration,
which he heads, started to lay elabo-
rate plans for moving heavily into the
production field.
But industry. seeing competition on
the horizon, baked. 1t was aware that
II the unemployed made things for
their own use, there would be smaller
demand for industrial goods. Mr..
Roosevelt backed up the industrialists
turned against Upton Sinclair and
put his foot down on production plans.
Now Mr.. Hopkins. having taken over
the relief administration in Ohio. IS
closing down factories operated by the
unemployed in that State. The Ohio
plan" was the largest experiment in
the production -for-use program.
x
II do not believe in work projects
OF that type" said Mr.. Hopkins. IF
it Is a good thing for us to operate
a factory on a work-relief basis, max
ing stockings. or stoves, or pottery in
Ohio. then it is a good thing to do
all over the United States. This was
a direct operating work-relief project
using machinery and everything. I
think that should not be done"
That can be scratched of the ex-
pertinent list.
But whether Subsistence home
steads" will have the same fate is
another question.
DR.. Rexford Guy Tugwell. new re-
settlement administrator, has recently
taken over management of these
homeSteadS. There are about so prof.
ects under way or completed. DR..
Tugwell Is far from being sold on the
success Of this type of venture. He
thinks that only exceptional persons,
old people or those who are beaten,
will care to take up life in a COM
munity outside the main stream of
life and subject to Federal paternal-
ism.
So this experiment is due for def
mite change, if not liquidation.
The New Deal has learned much
through its first two years of expert
ment. As pointed out above, many of
the lessons learned are being applied
gradually in policy changes and shifts
in the whole Roosevelt program.
Whether the changed plans will
work better than those they replace
is something for the future to tell.
tCopyrieht 1881