The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1945-06-22
EMPLOYMENT
BILL RECEIVES
ENDORSEMENT


congress by coming out with flat
and unreserved endorsement of the
purposes of the bill.
Mr.. Wilson's letter follows:
"This is in response to your letter
of April 8, concerning S. $50, bill
to establish a national policy and
program for assuring continuing full
employment in a free competitive
economy through the concerted eff
forts of industry, agriculture, labor
state and local governments, and the
federal government.
Next to a speedy and complete vic.
tory over Japan, steady, well-paid
job after war is first in the minds
and hearts of most Americans. The
war has demonstrated that our eco
nomic system can provide jobs when
demand for its product exists. 1t has
done more. 1t has opened the eyes of
all of us to the vast productivity of
which American labor and the Amer
lean genius for organization and man
agement = working as a team - are
capable.
But these jobs-this productivity
have been achieved in wartime
through the creation of an unlimited
market by the government. To reach
and maintain high levels of employ
ment and a steadily rising standard
of living in peacetime will call for a
program suited to peacetime condi-
tions and needs In this program,
business, agriculture, labor, and local,
state and federal governments must
all play their parts.
1--WE know we have an abundance
of resources, plant, manpower, and
managerial knowhow to produce a
standard of living far higher than any
think we ever have known. Likewise,
we know that we have untitled needs
in America so diverse and so great
as to challenge the capacity of even
the greatest producing nation on
earth.
But needs are not demands, in the
economic sense. People must have
steady income and they must want to
spend their income before needs be-
come demands and people become
customers.
Business management, large and
small, has a great opportunity and a
great challenge to help create these
steady incomes, and to actuate de-
mand by expanding their businesses
offering better goods and services at
attractive prices. Labor and agricul-
ture through their efforts to increase
production per man-hour can contrib
ute Importantly ia higher incomes
and a higher standard of living.
But history shows us that bust
ness, labor, and agriculture cannot in
themselves assure the maintenance of
high levels of production and employ
ment. The government, acting on be-
half of all the people, must assume
this responsibility and take measures
broad enough to meet the issues Only
by looking at the economy as a whole,
and adopting national economic pol
icies which will actively promote and
encourage the expansion of business
and the maintenance of markets and
consumer spending, can we hope to
achieve full employment S. $50 rec
ognizes this responsibility of govern
ment and seeks to provide a definite
vehicle for the congress and the Presi-
dent to measure the size of the en-
ployment needs of the country and to
provide specific programs for meet |
ing it,
''It would be idle to pretend that
it will be easy to reach and hold full |
employment levels. 1t would be folly. |
on the other hand, to pretend that it
is impossible. The American people |
will not be content to go back to pro-
tracted large-scale unemployment. 1t
is imperative that we find ways and
means to provide jobs for those will |
ing and able to work. Depressions
are not acts of God, any more than
wars are. They are the product of |
our man-made institutions and the
way we organize our society. We
can and must organize to prevent
both.
1--WE must be prepared to make
changes. At the same time we must
be jealous of any encroachment on
our freedoms. National economic
policies must not be allowed to de-
velop into RECOMMENDATION of business,
or labor, or agriculture, or of the
people. Direction of private output
by public authority in peacetime is
repugnant to American WAYS of
thought. Instead, the maximum DOS
sible freedom must be afforded every
producer to produce what he wishes.
in the amounts for which he best can
find a profitable market. Given an
adequate market, our producers will
supply the goods and the EMPLOYMENT
We can be sure of that.
we cannot, however, leave the
creation of that market to chance
We must start now to find out what
measures are needed to maintain mar
kets and steady jobs. S. $50 does not
profess to present a full-conceiyed
program for the achievement of full
1t is the necessary first
from which a full-dress program of
economic policies to promote the we'll
being of our free competitive econ
omy will stem.
"As former member of congress-
have certain general reactions to
he bill regard it as desirable that :
such bill should limit itself to proyid- :
ng the machinery to be followed to :
lssist in arriving at national policy
md full employment, rather than at
empting to specify in advance policy
measures to be used to meet future z
II InO1f a / =