The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-01-25
. BEHIND THE SCEl1ESl WASHINGTON \ 8V RODNEY pUTcHER-1
 Democrat Washington
 Correspondent
After 30 Maybe It's Wiser To Speak Softly
 Of Business
 xpansions s

Washington, Jan. z5-Many oh- servers profess to detect a similarity between the series of Roosevelt con- ferences with business men-and la- bor leaders-and the Hoover stab ilization conferences" in the 1929-3O | fall and winter.
 One of the several differences is found in the fact that by the end of 1880 nearly everyone thought that the depression had been stalled and was about to be replaced by new business boom in which government, business and labor would pull to- gether.
 This time it isn't quite so "ob- viouS".
 With Great Flourish
 In view of what happened in 1930. 1881 and 1882 it may be a good sign that the ballyhoo of huge new con- struction programs by private in- dustry is much softer and more cautious this year than it was eight years ago.
 At that time it was announced
 with great flourish that the public
 utility executives had come to the
 White House and outlined 8 $2,-
 O00,0O0,00O program for 1930. The American Telephone & Telegraph Co. was going to spend $70O,000,-
 900, U. S. Steel would spend $250,-
 100000 and some 29 states were re- ported to be planning an aggre-
 gate construction program of $4,-
 7OO,0O0,0OO. No end of corpora
 ti0nS were announcing programs"
 involving expenditure of 10 to 50
 millions.
 Everyone was talking about fun damental bases of prosperity" strength of the business fabric, "soundness of the economic struc- ture," and numerous constructive elements brought into play by the crash"
 By early December, 1929, President Hoover believed that confidence in business had been re-eStabliShed- and so told Congress. The volume of Christmas buying convinced him that business had been restored. Julius Klein, Julius Barnes,
 Charles M. Schwab. the Rockefel-
 lers, Alfred F. Sloan, Martin In- sulI E. T. Stotesbury, Dwight
 Morrow, Will Hays, the American Bankers association spokesman
 and many others issued state
 ments of lofty reassurance. The more you recall all that sort of thing and how little anyone knew what he was talking about, the more comforting the outlook seems today. Farm Income Subsidized
 For whatever they may be worth, certain changes in the economic set up have been wrought by govern ment which tends to make a differ ent picture in the present recession.
 The income of farmers is being heavily subsidized and the federal government i1l effect guarantees to take care of those cast of by indus try when the system slips few cogs. There are no bank failures or
 "runs" because bank deposits are insured (under a measure which
 the administration opposed, but
 for which it often claims full credit).
 It also appears that the govern ment can push the business curve up or down by turning the spigot of federal expenditures on or off, al- though many fear the turning on process just as much as others ob- ject to the turning-off.
 He Already Has Advice
 Wise bets are being placed more on natural causes" as a depression cure rather than on any concrete result of the recent White House business conferences.
 Roosevelt's plan for a new council of advisers-to represent all seg- mentS of American life"-sounds well and ought to make everyone feel good, but it doesn't appear yet that there's much hope in it beyond that. There is no segment of Ameri- can life from which Roosevelt al- ready isn't receiving more advice than he or anyone else can digest. Already the president has been | telling earnest callers that his pre- vious press conference proposal that business men get together to plan production isn't anything that can materialize right away-not this year, at any rate. Both Roosevelt and some of his advisers yearn for recreation of "the best things in NRA".
 But these advisers are being pained to learn that F. D. R. doesn't think this is a politically expedient l time fnr if