Evening star., 1939-01-04
needs no further information on

this.
With this exception of legisla-
ton to provide greater Govern
ment efficiency, and with the ex-
ception Of legislation to amelio-
rate our railroad and other trans
portation problems, the past three
Congresses have met in part or in
whole the pressing needs of the
new order of things.
We have now passed the period
of internal conflict in the launch
ing of our program Of social re-
form. Our full energies may now
be released to invigorate the proc
esses Of recovery in order to pre-
serve our reforms, and to give
every man and woman who
wants to work a real job at a
living wage.
But time is of paramount i'm
portance. The deadline of dam
ger from within and from with
out is not within our control.
The hour-glass may be in the
hands of other nations. Our own
hour-glass tells us that we are
of on a race to make democracy
work, SO that we may be efficient
in peace and therefore secure in
self-defense.
This time element forces us to
still greater efforts to attain the
full employment of our labor and
our capital.
First Duty Is to Bring
Capital and Man Power Together.
The first duty of our states
manship today is to bring capital
and man power together.
Dictatorships do this by main
force. BY using main force they
apparently succeed at it-for the
moment. However, we abhor their
methods, We are compelled to ad-
init that they have obtained
substantial utilization of all their
material and human resources.
Like 1t or not, they have solved,
for time at least, the problem
of idle men and idle capital. Can
we compete with them by boldly
seeking methods of putting idle
men and idle capital together
and, at the same time, remain
within our American way of life,
within the Bill of Rights and
within the bounds of what is,
from our point Of view, civiliza-
ton itself?
We suffer from a great unem-
ployment of capital. Many peo-
pie have the idea that as a Ma
ton we are overburdened with
debt and are spending more than
we can afford. That is not so.
Despite our Federal Government
expenditures, the entire debt of
our national economic system,
public and private together, is no
larger today than it was in 1929,
and the interest thereon is far
less than it was in 1929.
The object is to put capital
private as we'll as public-to
work.
We want to get enough capital
and labor at work to give us a
total turnover of business, a total
national income, of least eighty
billion dollars a year. At that
figure we shall have a substantial
reduction of unemployment; and
the Federal revenues will be
sufficient to balance the current
level of cash expenditures on the
basis of the existing tax struc-
ture. That figure can be at
tanned, working within the
framework of our traditional
profit system.
Factors of Maintaining
National Income Complicated.
The factors in attaining and
maintaining that amount of ma
tional income are many and
complicated.
They include more widespread
understanding among business
men Of many changes which
world conditions and technologi-
cal improvements have brought
to our economy over the last 20
years-changes in the interrela-
tionship Of price and volume and
employment, for instance
changes of the kind in which
businessmen are now educating
themselves through opportunities
like the so-called monopoly
investigation"
They include a perfecting of
our farm program to protect
farmers income and consumers
purchasing power from alternate
risks OF crop gluts and crop
shortages.
They include wholehearted &C
ceptance of new standards of
honesty in our financial markets.
They include reconcilement of
enormous, antagonistic inter-
ests-some Of them long in litiga-
tion-in the railroad and general
transportation field.
They include the working out of
new techniques-private. State
and FederaEto protect the pub
lie interest In and to develop
wider markets for electric power.
They include revamping Of
the tax relationships between
Federal, State and local units of
government, and consideration of
relatively small tax increases to
adjust inequalities without inter-
'fering with the aggregate income
OF the American people.