Evening star., 1948-07-25

So
Reviewed by
CARTER BROOKE JONES.
The economic abyss of the '30s
contradicting every conception oi
America built up in the great
industrial era, has inspired many
books.
Economists have looked at thi.
unprecedented collapse from many
angles. MarXists have used it as 6
premise for their usual argument
advocates of big business have triec
earnestly to see what went wrong
with their pyramids of expansion
Novelists have built stories around
the crash and its aftermath.
Mr.. Wecter has made probably the
most thorough study in concise form
Of the causes and effects of this ma
tional setback. His book is both
scholarly and highly readable-a
rare combination, indeed. And no
one, I think, has been so unbiased
in his approach and so fair in his
judgments.
Recovery Was Slow.
There were hard times before
1929, Of course - financial panics,
followed by epidemics of business
failure, unemployment, privation--
but nothing that approached what
we went through in the early '30s.
In the troubles of 1887, 1873, 1893,
1907 and 1921, as Mr.. Wecter points
out, recovery came about fairly soon
from seemingly natural causes" ."
The pump primed itself; the first
thing you knew good times were
back. But after '29, "the whole
world lay under the same blight, and
American industrial expansion ap-
peared to be near it's limit"
If there is a weakness in Mr.. Wee
ter's excellent book, it is a tendency
to regard public opinion polls as in
fallible reports of what the people
are thinking. He quotes them con-
stantly.
What were the causes of the great
debacle? The Nation" says Mr..
Wecter, was ill, not from a single
malady but from a mixed infection,
and years of easy living had helped
sap its innate powers of resistance"
Prices Climbed High.
He sees overexpansion of credit
as a prime cause of the disaster. In
analyzing the other causes he
points to a production that over
reached consumption, with prices
continuing high and wages almost
static, during the '20s. Monetary
control had shifted from industrial
capitalism to finance capitalism,
with investors pools pyramiding
into holding companies that
stretched until they broke.
Mr.. Wecter credits President
Hoover with doing everything he
could, within his conscience and
his philosophy Of government, to
meet the crisis. Mr.. Hoover was
blamed for a disaster whose seeds
U'ere sown long before his accession
to Office and which undoubtedly
would have come had his opponent
triumphed, in 1928"
New Deal "Improvisations."
The author feels that Franklin D.
Goosevelt was brilliant at impro-
'isation, and that most of the early
New Deal measures were just that,
though some of them turned into
apparently permanent reforms bene-
Jlcial to society. At the same time,
Mr.. Wecter does not hesitate to
point out defects in the various
programs
The New Deal" he writes, "did
not and apparently could not solve
the basic recovery problem. Some
of its works, notably the NRA, seem
actually to have retarded recovery,
but others, like the pump-priming
PWA and WPA, helped to acceler-
ate domestically that improvement
in economic conditions which from
early 1888 set in through the world"
Social Security.
The greatest achievement of the
Roosevelt years, Mr.. Wecter feels,
was that the idea of social security
took root, the feeling that the citi-
zen should be protected, from youth
into old age, against hazards be-
yond his control. And he thinks
the good old days" before 1929 are
cone forever. "* That American
life would never be the same again,
both friends and foes agreed"
Mr.. Wecter's description of the
hyproductS of the depression
in home life, hoboing, literature,
drama, labor unions, fascism and
conmunism-is clear and absorbing.
Mr.. Wecter has taught English at
several universities and has written
a number of books. At present he
is chairman of the research group
at the Huntington Library, San
Marino, Calf.
LIGHT IN THE SKY
BY Agatha Young. Random
House; So
In the 1870s the iron industry,
centered in Cleveland, was turning
to a new process which produced a
tougher material-steel. The lake
ships still brought in ore under sail,
but they were changing to steam.
The West was growing magically.
American industry was expanding
under the credit financing of East
ern interests. The modern era was
taking shape.
Miss Young has written virile
novel around the Cleveland of that
day. The story is dominated by the
striking figure of John Fenno, who
fabricated iron and began to make
steel. He had come out of the
Civil War foreseeing a tremendous
demand for iron and rebuilt his
business at an opportune time. He
became a tycoon of that era.
Cold and Ruthless.