Roanoke Rapids daily herald. (Roanoke Rapids, N.C.) 1948-1949, 1948-11-04
BY Ray Tucker

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4-The
Administration which assumes
control of the government on
January 20, l949. will start I'M
der a serious handicap, PARADE
xically enough, because of the
high-level economic conditions
which have prevailed for the
last three years, and which will
probably continue at least
through 1850.
Its most important task viii
be to insure that there be no
let-doWn in production, employ
ment, wages, income and no
adverse change in the precar-
ious balance between take-home
pay and prices that exists to-
day.
1t must defy the boom-and-
bust-cycle theory, even though
the federal government can ap-
ply only limited and feeble con-
trolls to domestic econo-
my now so involved and inter-
twined with uncertain and dan
gerous foreign crises and devel-
oprnents.
1t must, however, maintain
the present so-called prosper
ity" through four or eight years,
or be tossed aside as was Her
bert Hoover in 1882, perhaps at
the end of the first term. For
although President or Con-
gress, or a combination there
of, has comparatively small
influence on economic forces or
currents surging around the
White House, the people expect
them to be miracle worker.
If they fail to perform, the
voters throw them OUT
PROBLEMS The post-elect-
ion interim at Washington COIN
cldes with fierce argument be-
tween two schools OF economic
thought. There is the College OF
Bust and the University OF
Boom. Each presents cogent
arguments in support of their
conflicting theories that the in
coming President should be
pitied or envied
The pessimists have 1t that
advance warnings of depres-
sion have already begun to
darken the horizon In their o.
pinion, the wartime and post
war boom, which was based on
crisis expansion of industry,
business and income in the form
of profits and wages, has be-
gun to level off.
Like a SNOWFALL, they insist,
such process will gather force
slowly but surely until it drags
us down to a 1887 level,
when millions walked the
streets until the bugle of Hitler,
Mussolini and Hirohito footed
them back to the factories for
the manufacture of war weap-
ons
This group argues that the
basic problems of the Ameri-
can economic system have not
been met or solved only hidden
by the enforced expenditure of
more than $500. 900, 900, 900 to
win the war. They insist that
the next President must meet
them, and they doubt If he can
do it in view of domestic and
world pressures.
DOOM The prophets of doom
for Dewey marshal strong and
ancient evidence. They point
out that industry and business
are spending less money than
did in 1947 for expansion and
inventories.
Consumer demand had drop
ped. Workers pay had become
more stabilized. though still at
an all-time peak. Farm prices
and, therefore, farm income
have declined, and they point
out that this has always been a
classical warning of classical
tumble for the nation-at-large.
A curtailment of large-scale
expenditures by industry, thew
continue, will produce a spiral
OF unemployment, less purchas-
ing power and further industrial
slowdowns and shutdowns.
The pessimists think that the
United States. if it has not en-
tered that boom-and-bust cycle
now, will walk into it blindly
and ignorantly within a year or
two at the most. 1t has always
been so, they say, and they see