The Redwood gazette., 1935-06-06
Old Bird Not Dead

1ROBABLY no single idea OF the new
deal is more sound, fundamentally, or
capable of contributing as much to-
ward recovery and making recovery perman-
ent than the NRA. Yet last week when it
was knocked out by a United States supreme
court decision that part of the public that
had heartily favored it felt just bit reliev-
ed and that part that bitterly opposed it
confessed that considerable good was dying
with it's faults.
Reason for this peculiar situation is
that the NRA had become a governmental
monstrosity Beginning with simple order
that every business man understood after
one or two readings, the NRA developed 557
codes with orders, amendments, additions
and substractions until 557 code admins
traitors had only vague idea what the lat
est rules and regulations were and little
hope of enforcing them and the average
business man had long since given up any
thought Of the fine points, being content
with light regard for the rudimentary
points.
Overgrown, the system of codes drew
arbitrary points that made enforcement i'm
possible and unpopular and the whole
scheme became the butt of well founded
criticism of brain trust theories of govern
ment. The biting of this vast chunk took
considerable time and created friction but
the chewing was the Paul Bunyan task
which administration jaws were stuck with
when the supreme court relieved it of its
burden.
Any man in business can see the need
of some things that codes contained. The
manufacturer who resorts to child labor and
sweat shop production to undersell COM
petitor menaces legitimate firms and should
be treated like the outlaw he is. Establish
ing of prices brought an outburst of criti-
cism from the consumer and no doubt was
system of bids led to use of inferior mater
ials and workmanship and it is doubtful if
the consumer was very much the gamer.
What will happen now depends very
much upon the attitude of employers. A
good many have expressed the intention of
maintaining wage scales at present levels as
if nothing had happened. The NRA wage
scales were generally plenty low when estab-
lished and are lower now in proportion to
the cost of living. There is no justification
for lowering the hourly wage scale and very
little for increasing the hours so long as un-
employment remains a major recovery
problem.
Employers in large cities who take ad-
vantage of the opportunity to cut wages
will pave the way to strikes. Employers in
small towns escape this threat but they will
open the way to public criticism which may
be as disastrous in the long run. Wage
scales in most towns of this size are already
out of line with living costs, in the wrong
direction from the workers point of view.
Employers may observe code wage
scales voluntarily for time but eventually
chiselers will make it necessary to replace
Codes This should be done on sectional
basis with very limited number of codes
each built on the same principle and offer
ing labor protection from the unscrupulous
employer and the employer protection from
outside labor agitators and outlaw competi-
tion. Enforcement should be handled
through local courts with the same privilege
of appeal as other laws.
Under such plan the good points
could largely be retained and the bad points
generally eliminated.