Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-06-17
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By Carter Field y
By Carter Field "

O. 1929 are not coming back-are
not en- route-are not even desired
by the New Deal. This has been
said by President Roosevelt many
times, but its present importance
lies in some figures recently sub
mitted to a group of economists by
DR.. Harold G.. Moulton, president
of the Brookings institution.
DR.. Moulton made some very in
teresting comparisons with 1929 en-
ployment and production figures.
Some construed the chief thought to
be that the country has not arrived
yet at a situation where enough of
everything for everybody can be
produced by people working only
forty hours a week.
But more significant, in the view
of some of the New Dealers who
have been studying his attitude,
is that the doctor made a liberal
estimate about the number of men
who could be employed-in addition
to those working at present-in
what are classed as the durable
goods industries-primarily indus
tries which produce machinery and
other things which are not used up,
but generally add to the country's
productive capacity. AS for exam
pie, a new blast furnace, a new
newspaper press, new canning or
textile machinery-in fact, machin-
cry of any sort.
DR.. Moulton estimated that more
than eight million more men would
be employed in the durable goods
industry if 1929 conditions were to
be equalled. This does not mean
that precisely that number less are
employed now in the durable goods
industries than were in 1929. Allow
ances are made for increase in pop
ulation and other factors.
But the chief point here made by
the New Deal economists is this
huge number of persons employed
in the durable goods industries was
one of the really vital things wrong
with the then situation-one of the
important factors which resulted in
the collapse-one of the contribut-
ing causes to the situation which
the New Deal is seeking to correct.
Logic Is Simple
President Roosevelt does not be-
lieve such a large proportion of the
country's labor should be used in
the durable goods industries as was
so employed in 1929. His logic is
simple though not very widely un-
derstood.
His point is that too much of the
earnings of the big corporations in
the good years preceding the crash
was plowed back into the business.
Too many units in the various in
dustries, he points out in conversa-
tons, decided that business was
good, they could sell more goods
than they could make-so they built
an additional plant.
The result was, that instead of
these earnings being distributed,
whether to labor, to stockholders,
or, by reduced prices, into creating
a larger purchasing power which
would absorb more goods, they
were frozen into plants for the prod
ucts of which the day came when
there was no market.
Immediately the situation spread,
lack of confidence was inspired, pee
pie began to save and hoard money,
and the factories stood, as he likes to
say, "stark and idle"
So the New Deal economists would
dread the day when DR.. Moulton's
estimate of how many more men
could be employed in the durable
goods industries might be realized
in actual employment. They would
figure another 1929 crash would fol-
low very speedily.
Popularity Declines
Probably the decline of President
Roosevelt's popularity is much
more real-certainly it is much
more obvious-on Capitol Hill than
i is out in the country. Senators
and representatives in private con-
%versations admit that they believe
the President has lost only a frac-
ton of his following in the country.
Proof of that pudding will not
be evident until there are some sig
nificant primaries, in which some
anti-New Deal Democrat puts UP a
real battle.
But on Capitol Hill there are a
surprising number of Democrats
who seem anxious that the Presi-
dents foot should slip a little. It is
one of the reasons why the fight
against enlargement of the Supreme
court has become so important
and so bitter.
Most of the insurgents do not ex-
plain why they are insurging-they
claim that in each particular case.
be it the court, or the r%eorganiza-
ton, or federal economy, or the
PWA, or what not, much to their
regret they have been forced to op-
pose the President.
1t is perfectly true that they, in
most instances at least, are really
opposed to the President on these is
sues. But there is an underlying
motive which has not come out in
the open.