Evening star., 1935-11-10

destruction Of food and clothing was
an excellent thing if it was done arti-
ficially by a tax on the consumers. but
a terrible thing when an outraged
nature did it for nothing. The South.
still infatuated with the phenomenon
of a Democratic President. was plow-
ing up cotton. Few SouthernerS had
begun to realize that the cotton subsidy
had a tendency to 60 to well-to-do
plantation owners while share-crop-
pers. tenant farmers and farm laborers
were going on the dole.
The p w. A. was still printing the
pump. pouring endless millions into
bottomless pits. 1t was not yet ap-
parent that the economists were right
in saying that no government has
sufficient resources to provide a sub
stitute for private enterprise when
private enterprise is so scared by gov
ernmental activity that it will not
revive.
Money Experimenters.
In the field of money the expert
menters had had their day. The naive
gold-purchase program had run its
faI aIce-comedy course, and in January
the Government had adopted the ad-
vice of somebody or other that it was
time to stop. The dollar had been de-
valued to So cents, level which would,
according to the advisers. very prompt
ly raise general prices So per cent.
The administration had finally given
in to the silver lobby, agreeing to buy
from the noble band of American pro-
ducers all that they could turn out at
price of 64i2 cents. the discredited
metal having a world value of about
% cents and an artificial American
value, due to gold debasement, Of about
As cents.
At this time Of writing year ago.
it was just becoming evident that de-
valuation was not working out just
the way the amateur experts had
guaranteed. On the contrary. it was
working out just the way the econ
omists had warned that it would. 1t
had raised the prices of products with
a world market, including imported
materials on which American. in
dustry depends, by almost the amount
of debasement. 1t had had very little
effect on domestic prices. those prices
being about where they were two
years before, in 1882.
This was the background of the
article of year ago. Its theme was
simple. It was that year and a
half of interferences with industry and
finance had merely confirmed some
very old and very elementary princi-
piles of economics.
The first of these is that recovery
comes in its own good time and that
meddling and regimenting and leger-
demain and economic Punch-and-Judy
shows can do very little to hurry it
along. The second of these principles
is that at their worst legislative and
executive interferences cannot do
much to hinder recovery. They can
delay it somewhat, they can make it
feverish and unnatural, they can add
to its uncertainty - but they cannot
fundamentally block the recovery
process. And the burden of that article
a year ago was that the recovery
process had begun. 1t was erratically
and timorously and slowly, but indubi-
tably, on the way.
The Death Of the N. r. A.
A lot of water has gone over q
number of dams in the intervening
year. The tumult and the shouting
have not died, but increased. A good
many captains and kings have de-
parted, but new ones rise to command
places in the Washington merry-go-
round. The N. r. A.. evaded, houted,
violated everywhere, went on its blum
dering way. Eventually its leader re-
tired, lamenting, all unconscious of
the dismal fact that the N. r. A., rich
in possibilities for good, had been
doomed from the beginning by its ad-
lninistration, a weird compound of
hysteria, dictatorship and appalling
economic ignorance. The bedraggled
eagle, already dead as a dodo," was
finally destroyed by plebian Brook
lyn chicken.
The A. A. A. has also been pursuing
its anguished way, injuring the textile
industry, the flour industry, the rail-
ways, the banks, the machinery max
ers and the fertilizer companies. in
creasing unemployment, killing of the
South's great export market, increas-
ing the costs Of relief, and raising the
cost Of living. There was time when
some observers regarded the A. A. A.
as the soundest Of all the recovery ex-
periments. It is now clear that it is
the blindest and most irresponsible Of
the entire program. The economic
Frankensteins who created this mon
ster are appalled, at their handiwork.
The evil process of restriction has
spread from cotton and wheat and pigs
to peanuts and tobacco and potatoes.
The administrators have become the
helpless victims Of wolhsh political
blocs, hungry for extortion Of the
consumer. In their panic they ignore
the law.
These are not idle words, Last