The people's voice., 1940-04-17
THE
WASHINGTON
SCENE
BY HENRY ION
Federated Press)

Beautiful stories, spread by thu
Natl. Assn. of Manufacturers and sim
liar groups, about the benefits tt
workers OF new processes in industry
exploded with bang here as the
Temporary National Economic Com
mittee on April 8 started hearings OF
1.-THE subject.
The NAM and the Machinery &
Allied Products Institute have been
putting forth literature purporting to
show that the percentage of the pop
ulation now employed is larger than
the percentage of the population EN-
Iployed in previous years.
Karl t. Compton, president of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in an article in a magazine called
think" contended that "even during
the recent depression larger pro-
portion of the population were wage
earners than in periods which were
considered prosperous rs or 100 years
ago"
Calmly and methodically, witnesses
and exhibits produced by the TNEC
showed that the figures on which
these assertions are made are phoney
What Compton and others did, ac-
cording to DR.. T. ]. Kreps, economic
advisor to the TNEC, was to take
census figures for those "gainfully oc-
cupied" and interpret them as mean
i,,cy ,t11nuod
In the census figures for previous
years, Kreps said, persons who listed
usual occupations" were counted as
"gainfully occupied" AS matter of
fact they might have been unem-
ployed, they might have been doing
housework and receiving no pay, or
they might have been seeking jobs.
"Gainfully occupied" in the mean
ing of the census figures, according
to the TNEC, meant those able and
willing to work and the gain in this
figure reflected merely the increase in
the number of people between the
ages, say, of 16 and 65 who could
work If there was employment
actual employment" on the other
hand, means people working for some
kind of money reward producing goods
or services. The number actually
employed" is but a portion of those
'gainfully occupied" as these people
are listed in the census figures.
Presumably DIR. Compton bases his
contention on reports of the census
Of occupations which enumerated ~
O73,233 persons reporting usual gain
full occupation in 1900 and 4S,S29,92O
such in 1880, a difference rated at
more than 20,0OO,O0O jobs" Kreps
said.
"But even in the very year 1880 for
which he uses occupational data, an |
census was taken TN
April, so it happened; the average
figure for the year must have been
much higher), showing at least $685.
300 actually unemployed of those Dr.
Compton counts as in employment
)r Jobs"
No such high flown statistical rea-
,oning clouded the atmosphere during
he testimony of SWOC chairman
Philip Murray and united Auto Woih
RS Pres. r. ]. Thomas. With them
t was a matter of so many thousands
Il workers being out on the street be-
ause machines had displaced them.
Murray said that in the steel IN
Iustry, machines have displaced 5o'-
100 with an additional 10000 sched-
lied to go within few years. He
stimated that in the past 10 years
,etween 100000 and 100000 work
rs in industry had been ousted by
nachines.
His suggestions for solution IN
luded adequate dismissal pay for
workers. displaced by chronological
hanges, large scale federal voca-
Ional training program to adapt dis K
laced workers for other jobs, meas