Evening star., 1939-06-25

A brilliant young Swedish economist,
DR.. Gunnar Myrdal, who has been COM
missioned by the Carnegie Foundation
to take an objective look at one of the
racial phases Of American life, is begin
ming to formulate some interesting ideas
about the United States.
Admiring our facility for material
achievement, the vast physical structure
Of American life. DR.. Myrdal at the same
time has doubts as to the stability of
American democracy. He wonders how
deeply attached we are to the democratic
process. He suggests that perhaps de-
mOcracy came too early in the United
States so that now in period Of crisis
we are too inclined to take our institu-
tions for granted.
He prefaces this by saying that these
are merely the impressions of for
eigner. And he is aware, too, Of the
great problems that make the function
ing of democracy in the United States
far more difficult and uncertain than
the functioning Of democracy in Sweden.
His own country, moreover, he says en-
phatically is not Utopia in which all
social problems have been solved.
Prepared to Face Problems.
Even if. in general, the economic and
cultural standard Of well-being is COM
paratively high, higher than in other
European countries" DR.. Myrdal says,
there remain preventable poverty, in
efficiency, and industrial maladjustment
But we are prepared to face our prob
lens squarely; we investigate our short
comings intensively and use the tech
nique of social engineering to plan for
their removal 1t is the very tension be-
tween recognized shortcomings and re-
form which denotes our democracy, not
richness and complacency."
The directors Of the Carnegie Founda-
tion made long search to find just
exactly the kind of social scientist they
wanted to carry out a special study of
the problem Of the Negro in the United
States First of all it had to be some one
from another country, one who would
have no inherited bias. He would come,
preferably, from country with no COL
onies and therefore no colonial policy
which he might have absorbed And,
naturally he would be man at the top
Of his profession.
In DR.. Myrdal they fulfilled not only
these specifications but they got consid-
erably more for their money. Besides
being an economist, professor at the
University of Stockholm, DR.. Myrdal has
been a member of the Swedish Senate
and leading figure in the Labor party
with q voice in shaping the policy of the
Labor government during the past seven
years. And with him he brought Mrs.
Myrdal, who besides being blond and
charming, is an economist and researcher
in her own right. While he is not ready
to say anything about the Negro studies,
he is willing to discuss collateral observa-
tions.
Having recently toured the South, the
Myrdals admit they had never realized,
even though they have been in this coun-
try before, that such poverty could exist
in the United States as they saw among
sharecroppers and tenant farmers. It
was a shock to them. At the same time.
they followed with interest the efforts of
the New Deal to relieve this poverty
through the Farm Security Administra-
ton.
Admire President.
They have a strong admiration for
both President and Mrs. Roosevelt.
Aware of what tremendous tasks face
any social reformer in the United States,
they feel that perhaps Mr.. Roosevelts
chief contribution thus far has been to
make the mass of the people conscious
that higher living standard is possible.
ut seems to me that he has educated
the American people to a realization of
what can be done" DR.. Myrdal says. "It
will never be possible to 60 back to an
earlier condition"
Above all, DR.. Myrdal is struck by the
difficulty of getting any real picture of
what the United States is like without
flrst-hand experience. The European
press, in his opinion, gives q distorted,
often deliberately false, view of this
country.
1.-The news from the United States
that appears in the European press usu-
ally concerns gangsters or the follies of
Hollywood" the Swedish economist said
in the course Of 4 long interview in
the New York City apartment the Myr-
dals have taken as base headquarters
during their American visit. European
opinion Is formed largely on this kind
of news.
$50 much happens in this country that
we in Europe never have any knowledge
of. The cultural activities Of the Works
Progress Administration-the theater,
the guide books and so on-were COM
pletely unknown to us until We came over
last fall. Nothing Is known in Europe
Of an important development of this
sort"
While praising the American press as
presenting . more complete picture Of
the world today than any press, Mrs.
Myrdal suggested that American news
papers sometimes overlook significant
news from Europe. For long an active
worker for women's rights, she cited ~
an example . law recently passed In
A