The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-02-07

TOT O JvlsG regulaUhWm UL luuuDvhy by pubIiO authority, but the only public authority competent to do this in our political sys- tenn is the Federal Government. Hence those who oppose an amendment to the Consultation which would confer this neces- sary power upon Congress are really demanding c continuation of the old order, laissez-Sairc, indivlduaIism, liberalism And unlimited competition"
 In case you don't know 1t "laissez-. faire" Is just the French way of saying "Dog eat dog"
 The Depression
 In his Mayhower Hotel mouth ings MT. Smith spared the coua- try his explanation of what caused the depression. It is safe to say that if he had one 1t would have been out of step with pr. Ryan's:-- ~
 "As every realistic student now recognizes, the main cause of the depression was . bad dis- tribution of our industrial prod uct. Too much was distributed in the form of profits and inter- est and too little in the form of wages and returns to the farms. As a consequence, too much of the money received for the product was invested in new capital goods. Too much was saved and too little spent. The product could not oil be sold because labor and the farmers had not been receiving enough income to buy as much as they wanted to buy. The re- celvers of profits and interest would not buy more because they did not want to buy more. Nor Is this all. In 1929 of thc fifteen billion dollars saved in this country, ten billion could not find 6 profitable place In new instruments of production; hence it was wasted in worth less securities and various other forms of speculation. Had the greater part of the fifteen bil- lion dollars saved fin that year gone to farmers in the form of higher prices for the products and to labor fin the form of higher wages, our industries could have been kept going at one hundred per cent instead of at eighty per cent capacity. Since this distribution was not made, our industries were twen- ty per cent idle, and at least tive and q half million persons were out of employment in this allegedIy prosperous year Of l920.". Unemployment
 MT. Smith had practically noth- ing to offer on unemployment cx- cept the brilliant statesinan-llke discovery that Unemployment and the farm problem we still have with us". the inference be- ing the palpably unfair one that the Democratic national adminis- tration had not contributed any thing in the way of a solution. Dr. Ryan diagnoses the disease or unemployment like an intelligent economic physician.
 However, excessive saving and excessive investment would not have brought about this great 0ver-capacity of our inc dustrles without the great and sudden technOl0gical progress, the rapidly increased substitu- ton of machines for men. Be. tween 1929 and 1929, the eHi- ciency of the average worker increased eighteen per cent; in manufacturing, twenty-five per cent. Between 1929 and 1934, the average efficiency of work CTS plus machinery increased twenty-seven per cent, nccord- ing to the National Bureau og Economic Research. Owing to these great improvements in production, the volume of un- employment will be much great CT when business is restored to the 1929 volume than t was in that year. The average level of industrial activity is now only four per cent below what 1t was in the years 1023-l025 and only .> twenty per cent lower than in 1929. Although business is twenty-five per cent better than it was q year ago, employment has increased only slightly. There are at least ten million persons still out of work. If and when business gets back to the 1929 level, the unemployed will number somewhere between i've and eight millions. This is the supreme problem Of social jus- tlce immediately confronting us. How can it be met?"
 The Cure
 MT. Smith was so brsily engaged in stuffing men with straw and then knocking the stuffing out of them for the edification of his fel- low duPont Leaguers at the Washington potlatch that he had no time to give any intelligible advice to his countrymen except that of the confirmed politician and the newly rich financier. Not 50 Dr. Ryan at Chicago. He ap- preached the difficulty of unenl- ployment with his head as well aa his heart. He is not in politics; he is not e press agent for the Democratic administration; and he is not an embittered, disap- pointed grudge-hugger getting his own back from an enemy. He thinks in terms of man not of money.
 "These millions must De fed and clothed and sheltered and provided with the minimum of goods required by decency and
 hTusssnrikv. The wnrk relief nrn.