The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-10-22

Tacks"-to be published Nov by the National
Home Library.
The book takes up the cause of spending in
big way
The theme IS that thrift was all right once, in
the days of scarcity when frugality and hard work
offered the only hope Of survival when capital
was drely needed, when the country was expanding,
when the demand for new goods was constantly
greater than the supply. But now, it is contended,
it's problem of consumption, and hence, of spend
ing-"We have come to a time when the insistent
demand is not for capital for labor but for buy
ers to carry away the goods"
SO it is argued that'the philosophy of Benjamin
Franklin is pasSe and that in our day as did
Franklin in his, must put aside the teachings Of
the ancients" and lead the people to adjust them
selves 10 the needs of things as they are
Neurological employment is stressed as perhaps
the greatest factor in the change-the thermostat
and the electric eye, the robots that can see and
feel and hear, the automatic factory in which ma
chimes tended not by men, but by instruments;
the subway turnstiles that have done away with
tcketchoppers the dial telephones that have taken
the place Of telephone girls; synthetic cotton and
all that
Millions who once worked in production will
never see factory jobs again. Coye says, declaring
that the "out" for the employment problem must be
in services" because services do not consume raw
material but are made up mainly of personal energy
and skill-dentiss prizefghers school teachers and
movie actors, hotel clerks nurses, and many many
more
There is a material limit" he writes, ito the
quantity of things that be made and therefore
to the number of people who can be employed in
making them. But there is no limit to the number
of services except our imagination and the amount
of available labor. The place for surplus workers
is in the occupations that provide health and recrea-
ton, art and education-in making parks and play
grounds, hospitals and schools, country clubs and
good roads, clean rivers and beautiful cities"
TTHENCE to the argument for spending, in such
passages as these:
GAS we pass from scarcity into plenty we have to
change our way of doing things or else there is trou
BILE Among these necessary changes one of the most
important will be in our attitude toward saving
money and building new productive equipment.
THE financial experts still think that no matter
how fast we save and invest we can never save and
invest too rapidly. They mistaken We might
go too fast.
after the did lot of overbuilding and
the bankrupt mills and apartment houses stand out
VI
Before 1929 we saved lot that we knew about
and lot that we never knew about and all this
money used to buy that magnificent collection of
cats and dogs which the American people had in the
bank box when they woke up.
Some of the bankers think the new era was an
age of extravaganza, for which are now paying.
Actually it an age of thrift Never before did we
much nor buy SO much of the blue sky
IF we can increase our rate of spending and cut
down the rate of saving the amount Of business fail
ure will be diminished"
GO the author proceeds to his advocacy of govern
~ mental we'll as individual spending Old age
pensions for example, he says are means to pre-
vent saving and force the rapid circulation of
money; prevent by relieving fear force, by taking
money from those who won't spend it and giving
it to those who will People with large incomes
are apt to invest a large percentage of what they
get people with small incomes have to spend most
of their money in order to live"
Same argument for high income taxes and the
reverse English on the sales tax:
There is common idea among business men
that sales taxes can be passed on to the customer
by adding them to the price But the tax is taken
out of the customers pocket, and the customers
pocket is the only of income for the business
man.
Redistribution (of wealth. is not to make the
poor richer by making the rich poorer but to in
crease the income of the American people bv i'm
proving the ratio between spending and saving"
OF such material is built the appeal which leads
to such paragraph this
Every year since 1929 we have lost more than
40 billion dollars by staying in this depression If
the government could get out by spending 10 bill
lion dollars, 20 billion or anything less than 40
billion, that would net profit on the outlay If
the government could keep us out by spending any,
thing up to 40 billion dollars year every wear IN
I'll DoomS Day, that would be cheaper than what
we are doing now What is 40 billion dollars? Only
$500 apiece. A billion dollars is the pennies YOU nav
the neWsboy. This is a big country"
The book is important because it expresses a
point of view, one with which you may or NAV not
agree but one which is likely to be defended in a
lively way by many of those who, in 1895 find
themselves politically aligned on the spending as
against the saving side of the presidential CAM
palgn argument