Montana labor news., 1939-03-09
Legislators Blind With
|SeIfishness and Coneeit

tCONllnued rage -
and must not, be tolerated any
longer.
Nationally, we have natural re-
sources to meet our needs for untold
generations, more installed horse
power, and more machinery than the
rest of the world. More trained men
and women capable of efficient oper-
alton of our equipment for the pro-
duction and distribution of the social
needs of all our people.
The social institutions that sufficed
during the horse and buggy days are
today, junk, blocking the road to
American progress. And yet we
hear that prosperity is in sight. With
more than u million unemployed
and more than 35 million supported
by federal, state and municipal
funds, and with poverty, misery, and
crime widespread, we can rightfully
ask - WHERE is THIS PROS
PERITY? It must be still around
the corner.
Today American farms are pro-
ducing sufficient food for all, and
factories are equipped to turn out
manufactured goods, clothes, and
building materials, and other com
modities to meet every need, and
yet 40 million men, women and
children are destitute and exist on
the ~sufferance known as CHARITY.
Countless thousands live in fear that
they too, will be forced to join the
Bread Line. Instead of providing
plenty, the power driven machine
as used by the price fixing system
has neither banished poverty nor
relieved distress. It simply makes
the struggle for existence more in
tense. Men need not be hungry,
when fOOd-stuffs are allowed to rot,
or are destroyed! Wear rags, when
the government urges farmers to
pillow under One-third of their cotton
live in novels Or sleep IN park
benches, with vacant buildings
everywhere.
The problem of production is
solved, but abundance of goods to
the individual has not resulted under
the present system. Since the sys-
tenn fails to deliver the goods to the
Individual, it must be replaced by a
new economy founded on the fact Of
abundance. This paradox Of want
in the midst Of plenty, exists under
the price system because after pro-
duction has reached a certain point,
the more society produces, the less
the individual receives.
All, my friends, the people of
America have never had enough to
eat. Even in the best years of our
prosperity, we have always been
short of such foods, as milk, butter,
beef, mutton, fruit, eggs, and green
vegetables. To meet the dietary
standards as set by the Department
Of Agriculture, would require 1T
billion pounds of milk-only 100
billion were provided by our diaries
As billion eggs were needed-only
81 billion were laid-7 billion pounds
of beef were required-less than 5
billion we're produced-but food is
the least of our shortages. There is
a lack of clothing-the men of the
United States had to be satisfied in
1929, that year of great years of pro-
duction, with one-half a new suit Of
clothing each, and one-sixth of a
new o%vercoat, and since then the
budget has been drastically cut. And
what of the housing conditions?
Two-thirds of the 30 million Ameri-
can families live in shacks and slums.
Half a million of these are unfit for
human habitation. One million,
seven hundred thousand city dwell
ing units are in need of structural
repair million city homes lack
indoor toilets-5 million lack baths
in 6 million urban homes, cooking
is done without gas or electricity
most farm homes are not equipped
with any modern appliances what
ever.
1t is high time that we, the people
of the United States realized that
politics stand in the road, blocking
the pathway to our future. The
country has the men, machines, and
materials to provide every Ameri-
can with the highest stand of living
in the world from the cradle to the
grave. 1t is high time that we
Americans enlist in the Army to
Danish poverty from midst, and
make America safe, sane and sensible
for Americans. We have only one
WAR-it is the WAR OF PLENTY
VERSUS POVERTY - LEISURE
VERSUS TOIL-OF ABUNDANCE
VERSUS SCARCITY. 1t is a cause,
not to die for, but to live for. Here
and now is the time to enlist in the
greatest of all wars for this war will
have to be fought and won within
the next four or five years, if we are
going to avert the chaos of national
anarchy.
Everywhere the increasing intensi-
ty of the struggle grows, what
changes may come no mortal man
can tell, but that some great change
must come thoughtful men begin to
feel. The civilized world is
trembling on the verge of a great
EHf