Evening star., 1945-08-26
Asks Central Control
Of Economic Studies
Access to Facts Held Vital to
Full Employment Plan
BIZ Raunond Moleu.

ruIl employment Plan
By Raymond Moley.
It's great pity that the Murray-Was-
ner full-employment bill, now I'D for
Senate hearings, cannot be cut In two.
One principle in the bill would command
general respect; the other, bitter contro-
versy. But any Solomon who threatened
such major operation would elicit the
screams of the many fathers and moth
ers OF this hybrid legislative creature.
A further reason for the separation
Is the fact that the feature of the bill
which provides for yearly presidential
estimate OF future business and job con-
ditions ought to be passed soon enough
to enable the estimate to be made for
tn critical fiscal year Of July l, 1946
to June 80. 1947. There would be little
congressional or public opposition to this
provision for economic estimates. But
the attempt to incorporate in law the
theory of jobs-through- borrowing and
spending will meet protracted opposition.
The bill provides that the President
shall compile an economic picture of
the coming years possibilities and prob
abilities The source materials which
the President could command for such
an estimate are limitless For he could
use as his research staff not only many
governmental agencies, but private
agencies as well. And because such a
| general estimate would be subject to
scrutiny and debate by the press by
business and labor organizations and by
independent economists of all kinds, it
would almost have to be compiled in
scientific and nonpolitical manner. 1t
could, in truth, be a sort of annual
Domesday Book of national assets and
economic trends.
The very diversity of the materials
currently presented in the Senate COM
mittee hearings is an argument for
such central clearing house of sta
tlstlcs and estimates. Business asso-
Citations, labor unions individual experts
and the like are piling up a mass of
diverse figures which can only confuse
and deceive every one concerned. For
year or more we have heard gaesses
OF the postwar national income, run
ming from 10 to 200 billion dollars Hot
arguments about whether there will be
As or so or 81 or So million job oppor-
tunities have ragged. All sorts of esti-
mates have been made of the number
of people who will want jobs. The fire.
men on their way to the fire are still in
the flrehouse arguing. They can't de-
eide how big the fire may be or what
equipment is necessary. They don't
even know the location of the fire And
meanwhile, such iremen as Senator
Wagner and others insist on carrying
along on the trip an assorted lot of
antique theological furniture which has
no relation at all to fire fighting in the
imminent future.
If any such confusion had attended
the prosecution of the scientific side
OF the past war, our land would now
be occupied by Germans and japanese.
But in war there is such thing as re-
search by command. There is also such
thing In totalitarian governments in
peacetime. In Germany during the war
and in the years before the war, it was
routine for the government or for the
heads OF such private companies as l.,
G. Farben to assemble group of scien-
lists and engineers, to tell them what
was wanted and to command them to
produce the answer. The amazing thing
Is that this enforced research generally
produced the answer. The development
OF the atomic bomb was, in reality, such
a command performance. Many medi-
cal discoveries have come from such
| authoritarian methods. Perfect free
| dom and individual action in research
too often results in jealous withhold
| ing of information, in fruitless contro-
versy. in long delay and in ultimate
! failure.
| Why, it may be asked. cannot the
| same methods be used in solving eco
nomic riddles? Economic facts are facts,
| just as are chemical facts.
The answer currently given to this
| question is twofold. First, economies is
not science. Second, command per-
formances in scientific research may be
| appropriate to war and to totalitarian
| governments, but not to peace and to
free society.
1t is time to subject these two trite
answers to searching criticism 1t is true
that economic science is far behind the
physical sciences in freedom from
propaganda, private interest and politi-
cal bias. But it does deal with a suffi-
cient body of indisputable facts and
common assumptions to emerge some-
what from the age of superstitition,
Take simple example. In 1888, Con.
gress appropriated So 300 900, 900 for pub
lie works. It's purpose was to make Jobs
We have never had satisfactory scien-
tific analysis of how that money was
spent, how many jobs were created or
how much the work, thus started, OPP
Grated to make continuing business ac-
tivity. There were ex parte claims, Of
course. There were Government reports
and speeches by politicians. Senator
Wagner has no more to justify the
claims in his new bill than he had in
1888. when he helped sponsor the first
New Deal spending program.
The objection that we lose our free
dom if We apply some central control
to economic studies is not valid. There
can be centralized research without CEN
tralized power. There can be finality in
the determination of some facts, Just as
there is flnality in law-making and law
| Interpretation. For facts are the basic
materials of law