The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1946-07-26
AN EAGLES EYE VIEW OF THE
POSSIBLE FUTURE
BY o. M. THOMSON,
Willernie. Minnesota.


Willernie, Minnesota.
How can we achieve and maintain
full employment? That's the question
of the hour A simple answer wouit
be to implement full consumption O
wanted goods and services.
To realize this we must cast out al
fear, especially the fear of too mucf
for too many. Then we must release
and wisely direct human energy anc
machine power and provide ample
means of the medium which brings
goods and consumers together.
We hear lot of silly words about
the reserve of money burning holes in
pockets but long before all the needed
houses, automobiles, radios and cloth
ing are provided those now "bulging
pockets will be as empty as capital
lists head. The money must be kept
flowing into those pockets.
If dear old groggy private enter
prise cannot land it cannot) keep
those pockets filled then the govern
ment must make up the shortage.
Every person laid off by private en-
terprise must be put to useful mot
raking leaves or even making silly,
useless, duplicating gadgets) work by
the government. That's what govern
ment is for.
No work-stoppages should be per-
mitted Time is of the essence. An
overall commission should contin-
uously survey living costs and incomes
of all groups and keep the two in
balance.
Where Are The Blue Prints?
When the war ended the govern
ment should have had plans, spec1fl-
cations and blue-prints ready and
started quickly to the end that ex-
pansion full employment, production,
and consumption be attained and
maintained. And it's long way to the
saturation point, even though we are
the most prosperous" country on
earth-as measured by the low stand
ard of the backward" countries that
have been "held back by some OF the
more aggressive onesl
The nearest we have ever come to
the "saturation point (the meaning OF
which is vague) was in 1929. Yet we
were then short of needs n billion
pounds of milk, Is billion eggs, seven
billions pounds of beef, and produced
only half suit and one sleeve of an
overcoat per man.
And in that same peak year, two
thirds of the families of the United
States lived in shacks, nearly million
city homes needed repairs and four
million lacked baths. This says moth
ing about farm homes. And in those
days people were handsomely housed
as compared with today.
Unprecedented Need
Not only is there need-unprece-
dented and Incompatible need-for
new homes but practically all public
and private business buildings need
repairing, repainting, repapering and
sandblasting. Practically all cities,
generally decaying piles of rubbish,
should be spread out and the streets,
which were originally made for OK
carts, widened and made fit for
modern traffic
We waste centuries of time, millions
of gallons of gasoline, thousands of
miles of brakelinings stopping and
starting at street crossings. We slam
on the brakes and wait a block. We
step on the gas and run Qike helD a
block then slam on the brakes again.
Meanwhile we yell to high heaven
about the man-hours lost in strikes.
The whole country should be check
erboarded with two-way, four-way and
through-way highways. All blind"
curves should be eliminated All rail- |
road rolling stock should be stream |
lined and made of light materials, all |
Embarrassing land there's one for
every mile of track eradicated, and |
thousands of airplane landing fields |
constructed. All buildings, public and
private, should be aforementioned.
And yet we shipper that there's no
work to do, that there are no jobs,
that the frontiers are all exhausted,
developing and exploring all done. We
forget the millions of acres of logged
off (and hogged-off) lands that should
be reforested, the eroded farms that
should be re-soiled and terraced, the
lakes that should be dredged and the
rivers that should be ammed-rivers
down which billions of tons of the
cream-soil of millions of farms have
fled to the sea.
Staggers The Imagination
Flood control alone presents a job
that staggers the Imagination Each
year our rivers, thick (but each year
getting thinner) with the rich soil
from score of states go racing out to
the sea while cities and towns and
countryside are evacuated and the
Red Cross rushed to the rescue. The
lower Mississippi, into which all
streams from the Appalachians to the
FORD GETS FINED FOR
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