The midland journal., 1944-12-29
WNU Service, Union Trust Building
Washington, ID. G.

Washington, d. G.
"Sixty million jobs!"
That phrase has been batted
about hopefully, contemptuously,
with the raised eyebrow Of cynical
doubt, with the set jaw of desperate
determination.
People may believe it is an ideal
dream or feel that 1t is quite prac-
ticable but the majority of experts
will tell you unless it is achieved we
face the old cycle: imitation, depres-
sion, war and pestilence.
But the phrase $50 million jobs"
has acquired a new meaning in the
last few weeks. Why? Because of a
plan that has been presented to
achieve this goal. The men who have
worked it out, and the things that
have brought them together and
welded their ideas into an effective
implement, have caused some of the
hard-headed experts, who are accus-
toned to weigh such ideas on the
scales of experience and either toss
them into the scrap heap or hold
them up as worthy Of use, to call
this plan good.
The 'plan" is contained in little
red-bound booklet issued as Pam
phlets Nos. 1888 Of the National
Planning association and called
Americas New Opportunities in
World Trade" And let me hasten
to say right here that this organiza-
ton is not to be confused with an
other New Deal group Of a similar
name which congress In its wis
dom, or otherwise, has weighed in
the balance and found wanting.
The National Planning association
about which I am writing is non-
governmental, non-partisan associ-
alton of businessmen and scholars,
labor leaders, farmers, bankers and
manufacturers,-all, insofar as this
task is concerned, at once selfless
workers in the vineyard Of the pub
lie good, and husbandmen who
realize their neighbor's prosperity is
likewise their own.
There are three reasons why the
plan for creating jobs, worked out
by this organization, has made an
impression on Washington and else
where:
First, 1t has been examined and
praised by certain media of public
though. which can hardly be de-
scribed as champions Of the imprac-
tical, the utopian or the unAmerican
the New York Times, the New
York Herald Tribune, and Business
Week, to mention only three.
Second, because of the men who
authored or sponsored it-all lead
ers in their respective fields Of
American enterprise.
Third, because of the way the
organization which brought these
men together came into being.
Now let me give you the gist Of
the plan.
Must Boost Imports,
Foreign Investments
A 10 billion dollar trade budget
calling for increased imports and in
creased foreign investments. That
sounds pretty unorthodox to start
with. There would be tariff reduc-
tions to increase the imports on the
theory that only thus will foreign
countries be able to get the money
to buy our goods.
There would be steps taken to
make foreign capital investments
secure in order to build them up. 6
There would be an international
bank for reconstruction and de-
velopment; there would be longtime
foreign trade agreements coordi-
mated with longtime investment
programs.
Now, in order to understand why
such an unorthodox program finds
such ready acceptance in hard-bit-
ten world fed up with utopian plan
ming, let me take you back to the
genesis of the organization from
which this plan emerged.
We find ourselves in the COM
Portable but somewhat gloomy
quarters Of the old City club in New
York where met a group of men,
most Of them engineers, some econo-
mists, others interested as members
of that club, who had become tired
of the type Of research" which was
largely a collection Of ancient his
tory and which looked backward in
stead Of forward.
These men saw the weakness In
the kind Of report" frequently
asked for and submitted to great
corporations and other institutions
by high-paid and well-informed ex-
perts, but written entirely by men