Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1944-03-12
Transition
Continued From Page C-1.)


voices which, banking on the pent-
up demands to be satisfied after the
war, say no. The weight of the
evidence is to the contrary. AS
Kaiser pointed out, months will be
required by some industries to make
the necessary establishments.
Harold D. Smith, director of the
Federal Budget Bureau, is noted in
Washington for careful thinking
and statement. He says: Even if
we as a Nation succeed in handling
the process of economic reconver-
sion in the best possible way, sharp
dislocations are bound to occur.
They will vary in duration and in
tensity in different areas. 1t may
happen in some areas that while
private enterprise is swinging into
peacetime operation, expanded pub
lie works programs will have to be
used by State and local govern
ments to provide employment-and
if the situation should be so acute
as to threaten national stability,
then by the Federal Government as
we'll"
Temporary Unemployment Seen.
A report from the Department of
Labor predicts that with the coming
OF peace a large volume of unem-
ployment will quickly develop "un-
less we can have ready large scale
program of public works, noncon-
struct1on as well as construction, to
throw into immediate operation"
1t is true, the report says, that
while shrinkage is occurring in mu-
nltlons manufacture there will be
expansion in other lines. Still, for
the first six to nine months more
workers will be laid off than can be
hired in regular lines of work, no
matter how favorable conditions
may be, and it appears improbable
that the unemployment problem
can be reduced to small dimensions
IN less than a year and half"
1t is important" the report con-
tlnues. ito realize that this kind of
prediction about the immediate de-
mobilization period does not de-
pend on just when the war will end
Or on just how quickly we can hit
our peacetime stride after that. If
1t takes a year or two more to knock
out Japan after we have beaten
Germany, some reconversion NAV
take place before hostilities are fin
lshed, and this, while perhaps Gre
atlng some unemployment before
the war is over, may shorten the
transition period.
III industry hesitates and delays
the change-back to full-scale civil
ian production, unemployment NAV
run up to 100000 or more in half
a years time, whereas it may not 90
beyond 7,000,000-subject to offsets
by means of public works-if man
agement, labor and Government
tackle our joint problems with real
courage and intelligence.
Millions Will Seek Work,
But, regardless of events that
cannot yet be known, the situation
IN the first six months is bound TO
be critical. Discharges from the
armed forces and from war produce
ton will rapidly outrun new lob on
portunltleS in peace production.
Millions will be looking for work
without being able to find it i'm
in private industry and
normal peacetime government oper-
atlons. This can be stated fatlv
now.
1t goes without saying that the
impact of rehabilitation will not be
evenly distributed over the country
but will affect some geographic
areas, some industries and some oc-
equations much more severely than
others. The war has dislocated
most of the familiar patterns. bring
Ing huge aircraft, ordnance and eX-
ploslVe plants to quiet country
towns like Choteau Okla, and Pine
Bluff, Ark, expanding key industrial
centers beyond anything known
here in the past, creating unparal-
leled demand for certain job skills
needed in fashioning the tools of
war. The end of the war will re-
verse much of what has happened
since 1910"
Since it takes a long time to get
a public works program under way,
the report recommends an imme-
dlate start on planning. That adj
vice cannot be dismissed as merely
bureaucratic.
There will be time enough later
for the "spenders" and the mon
SpenderS" to fight over public works
as a national policy. Right now. it
is clearly the part of wisdom for the
Federal Government, the States and
local governmental units to get their
plans ready for public works as a
postwar emergency measure. For if
there is one certainty in the uncer-
tain employment situation, it is that
large-scale joblessness will not long
be permitted.
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