The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1936-05-06
NEWSPAPERS OPINION
/, FACT DoDGING

One of Professor Tugwelps charges against
Americans that is echoing loudest and longest
through the country is that we have been Pi'i-
able grubbing creatures, laboring to make money
and hide it away like misers for our children
This &c certainly not charge that can be talrly
loJoed AGAINST the New Deal. The inheritance the
Now Deal is leaving to our children and grandch-
a.or ord oreat-grandchildren is public debt that
will he S35, 900 100000 or more by the END Oh 'ne
fiscal wear of 1887, according to the estimate VI
Secretary Morgenthau. The New Deal pastes Tie
debt away on one side Of the national ieuger, 80
that uosterity will have the privilege OF paying
off Whenever the Administration is criticized 1or
piing up these fantastic arrears, the answer Is d"
WAYS the same: A great emergency exists. we must
care for our millions of unemployed
vorv we'll How many millions Of unemployed!
In his March eighteenth message to congress-
asking more money for relief, the president Said
+ba+ M fgure "can be even approximately accu-
,a+e because of the mpossibility of an exact dehn
+ior of what constitutes unemployment" Less than
. month before he made that statement experts
ON statistics in his own administration admitted
that a reasonably accurate unemployment census
was possible. The Department of Commerce pro
postponed until 1887 Ito avoid the possibility OF
charges that desire for electloh-yeaf PatronaEe
was behind the move" 1875 g..
This representative statement OF the depart
ment of Commerce is not easy to understand. Inc
fact that the administration refuses to try TO ma
out how many people on the government doie are
genuinely unemployed is likely to produce louder
cries of politics than if the administration went
after the real figures.
The assertion that reasonably accurate count
is impossible is unsupported by the facts The CEN
sus bureau in 1880, able to make sueh count
That census cost around $31 100000, which is not
high fee to pay for diagnosis that will tell US
lust how sick the country is, at time when we
are spending hundreds of millions for all sorts OF
magic medicines that fail to cure. The men to 90
the job are avaiable-thousands of whlte-collaf
workers are being assigned to fantastic pursuits
that accomplish little but the waste of the taXpay-
ers' money. Only last December the authorities
opposed to q census of the unemployed allotted
SIP, 900 900 to employ $4,000 such workers VINO
were on relief-to study ''the effects of recent
changes in the technique of production on the vol
ume of unemployment This chronological survey
was, of course, nothing but an old democracy
boondoggle with new name.
The present figures We have on unemployment.
are based on guesses. In February. for example,
the National Industrial Conference Board estimat-
ed the total unemployed at $4,000. About the
same time, William Green, president of the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor, put the figure at H.
$4,000.
Certainly no reasonable person opposes adequate
relief for those who have neither money nor jobs.
But, as things are, We are not only asking our
children and grandchildren to pay for the care OF
the poor that We have with us-in addition to the
care of the poor that they will have with them
but we are blandly spending their money without
knowing to what extent the expenditure is juSti-
fed. Whatever Professor Tugwe may think of it.,
this is dirty trick to play on our children and
grandchildren.
Whoever orders thoroughgoing census Of the
unemployed and sees that it is made whether Re-
publican or Democrat, will need plenty of political
courage. And courage is quality that has not
been common among our public men in recent
months. Yet those who show it, merit and receive
the confidence and respect of that large body of
people who are genuinely concerned for the future
of MISUNDERSTANDING Evening Post.