The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1938-12-07
We quote from The Texas Weekly:

1t made newspaper headlines the other day
when a member of Secretary of Commerce Ro-
per's Business Advisory Council told Senate
Committee that steady employment in industry
cannot be assured by legislation. Richard D.
Deupree, president of Proctor & Gamble, testi-
fed that he had studied this question in coop
Grafton with the Department of Commerce for
six months without discovering .''cure-all." His
declaration that unemployment cannot be legis-
lated out of existence evidently struck some of
the Washington correspondents as news of
rather sensational nature judging from the
space they devoted to the story. Their attitude
is understandable, of course; many of the state
ments made in Washington during the last sew
eral years have not been particularly notable for
their common sense. ss...s. .1
1t really would have been sensational news if
a high-ranking New Dealer had come out with
the assertion that enaeting another bunch of
laws isn't sure way of solving, once and for
all the problem of unemployment. But the
newspaper reporter who awaits the coming of
that development is likely to find himself in the
position of the scOOp-hungry newshawk who
moaned, as he lay on his deathbed, that he would
not be around to cover Judgment Day. If the
time ever comes when the New Dealers are will
ling to admit publicly that steady industrial en-
poyment can never be assured merely by pass
ing laws, newspaper presses all over the country
will start grinding out extra editions.
Whether the New Dealers make such an adj
mission or not, however, it is true that the
swer to the unemployment question is not to be
found in the passage of new laws, regardless of
their nature. 1t may be that part of the answer
is to be found in repeal of legislation already
enacted. The New Dealers might devote little
thought to that angle
The making of jobs in private industry
of sufficient number to eliminate the coun-
try's unemployment problem certainly is
not dependent on the passing of laws, as
The Texas Weekly asserts. In fact, the
chief hindrance at present to the solution
of the difficulties of unemployment is just
this matter of making laws; and it is GER
tain that before the problem can be solved
and normal conditions restored, most of
the laws for the control of business and
industry enacted under the new deal re.
gime must be repealed or greatly changed
The making of laws-the best of laws
will not make jobs in this country and
under the American system of business
-
When the laws made are altogether un.
wise, oppressive and destructive of oul
economic system, the results are terriicafly
handicapping and, under the new deal re
gime, they make the natural procedure
and course of industry and general bust
ness impossible. That is exactly the expe
rience of this country under the radica
program of new deal legislation.
The national administration is continual
ly shouting that business must save thu
country, must restore normal industrial
conditions, must lick the unemployment
problem, and at the same time all .ths
power at the command of the administra
ton has been used to secure the enactment
of restrictive, repressive and destructive
laws which make normal recovery impos
sible because they make it impossible fol
business to do the very things the radiea
politicians assert it must do.
The only achievement which can .bt
hoped for from this mass of radical legisla