Evening star., 1939-01-15
Democrucies Need to
Mobilize Resources
Bu OWen L. Scott


him on domestic and foreign policy.
That fact is the apparent inability Of
the United States, Great Britain and
France to utilize their man power and
money power and material power fully
and effectively enough to match the
efforts of the relatively poor nations like
Germany and Japan and Italy.
Great Britain, with her very existence
as the ruler of an empire threatened,
allows more than million of her work.
ers to remain idle while production of
vitally important war equipment lags.
British capital is in fight; British in
dustries are losing out in the world race
for markets; British morale is at level
that has startled representatives Of this
Government Yet the British slogan re-
mains business as usual" with human
and material resources unmobilized.
In France, next door to a Germany
that is increasing the work week from
A to Sc hours and is drafting women and
old men for jobs in an industry that is
crying for more and more workers, labor
has yet to be sold thoroughly on the idea
of harder work. and industry and finance
themselves remain disorganized.
The United States possessing the very
abundance of raw material and man
power and productive capacity and finan-
cial resources that Germany and Italy
and Japan are straining themselves to
possess, allows its raw materials to go to
waste, its man power to be Importantly
dissipated in idleness and its productive
capacity to be only partly utilized.
This world picture led President Roose-
welt to say something in his message to
Congress on the state of the Union that
caused many misgivings among some of
his advisers Mr.. Roosevelt, in rather
little noticed part of his address, said
the following:
The first duty of sur craftsmanship
today is to bring capital and man oower
together.
"Dictatorships do this by .nsin iorce.
BY using main force they apparently Sue
ceed at it-for the moment However
we abhor their methods, we are COM
PEELED to admit that they have obtained
substantial utilization of all of their ma
terial and human resources. Like it or
not, they have solved for time at least,
the problem of Idle men and idle capital"
President Roosevelt was careful in his
comments to direct a vigorous attack on
the political methods of the totaIitarian
governments. Those methods have deep
ly shocked people all over the world At
the same time, the President overrode
the objection of some of his advisers and
referred to the economic formula which
the totalitarian nations are using to get
the fullest utilization of their rather
meager resources. Those nations by all
Of the old standards should be bankrupt
In fact six years ago Germany was pros
trate economically, while today she is
beehive of activity threatening to over
whelm Europe.
There was hint in the Presidents
message that this country might learn
something from the economic, as con-
trasted with the political, methods of the
totalltarian nations.
That raises the question: What is it
that Germany and other relationships
do to produce the full use of their man
power to which President Roosevelt re-
fers? Is there lesson to be learned
from their experience with economic. as
differentiated from political, controls?
Mr.. Roosevelt is told that, basically.
two sets of economic controls are used
by the totalitarian nations to obtain full
utilization of their resources.
The first of these controls is over the
investment of the savings of the people
and the profits Of industry.
Inside the United States, President
Roosevelt is proposing that Government
assume more direction over the flow of
investment. Both in his budget message
and in his message to Congress on the
state of the Union, the President en-
phasized Government investment" of
national savings as means to generate
industrial activity at a time when pri-
vate industry lags in its own investment
w. P. A., P. w. A., R. F. c., F. H. A.,
U. S. H. A. and other New Deal agencies
are regarded as outlets for Government
investment Large-scale armament is an
outlet that is about to be broadened.
Where totalitarian nations use force
to direct savings into investment, the
idea in this country, as advanced by the
New Deal, is to stress inducements to
private investment, as in the case of the
| Federal Housing Administration.
| But then the totalitarian nations eXer-
else a second set of controls, as impor-
tant, if not more important, than the
| first set.
The second set of controls applies to
| prices. Largescale investment leads to
| rising industrial activity. Rising activ-
| ity in turn leads to labor shortages and
material shortages and production bot
| tlenecks that normally tend to cause
prices to skyrocket Skyrocketing prices
| as this country learned in 1937-can
| quickly cause recovery movement to
| crack up.
Nations with a controlled economy
regulate prices-not only prices of goods,
but labor's wages as well.
Price regulation necessitates type OF
RECOMMENDATION of industry and OF labor
that would be difficult to imagine for
this Nation. vast government bu-
reaucracy to police the price system is
essential If the system is not pollced,