Unemployment in the United States

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1828236179

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-226169

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Unemployment in the United States

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: United States, Government Printing Office

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: II, 193 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of Thomas F. Cadwalader, representing the Sentinels of the Republic, Baltimore, MD.

Collection:: Economics Books

140 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES It has been, as the Representative here from Michigan brought out yesterday, and it is substantially the same measure that has come before Congress heretofore and was considered but not enacted. It is a measure that has never been tried. N obody claims that it is the.same kind of thing that has been tried in England or Germany, and if it has, that it has succeeded in those countries or that there is any particular definite benefit to be derived from it. In fact, Mr. Green was pressed to say what good this would do and all he could say was, in effect, that it was possibly a palliative, and that it might accomplish something. One thing it will accomplish, and we know that. It will put this Congress again on record in favor of this 50-50 combination of seduc- tion and compulsion on the States to do the will of the central author- ity in the United States, and I submit that if these gentlemen could prove to you by demonstration, by a mathematical demonstration, that this bill would cure the problem of unemployment in the United States and would give everybody a job, it would still be not a good argument in favor of scrapping the Constitution of the United States. I say, referring to the speech of former President Coolidge that was just read to you by Mr. Emery, that the Constitution is more impor- tant than that; that a single emergency, however severe, does not justify its abolition; and, without a constitutional amendment, this sort of thing is practically an abolition or a destruction of the ground- work of the Constitution by substituting central authority, central responsibility, and central expenditure and taxation for the local self-government of our fathers that we have enjoyed up to the present time. If you do away with that, the Constitution is a shell: it is a form of words without meaning. Therefore I respectfully submit our organization urges upon this committee not to enact this bill, not to recommend its enactment, As to the other bills, we have no constitutional objection. They do some good. Well and good. They are policies temporary in their nature which if they turn out to be unsatisfactory in performance may be retreated from, but, as appeared in the history of the mater- nity bill, comparatively unimportant as that may be in its broader aspects, it has introduced a principle directly at variance with the Constitution which is being copied in this and other measures and will continue to be copied unless the Congress or the people put their foot down and say, “No; we have sworn to support the Constitution, and until you show us a better Constitution we will stand by it.” Mr. McKeown. Do I understand you to say that even if the Congress believed that these measures would give everv man in the United States a job, it should not be passed? Mr. Capwaraper. Yes; I said that. Mr. McKeown. You think it should not be passed even if it would do that? Mr. Capwaraper. No, sir. I would not vote for an argument to abolish the United States Constitution even if it would give every- body a job. I think it would be better that some people remain tem- porarily out of employment until times get better, without scrapping the Constitution that has served us in good stead for nearly a hundred and forty years. Mr. McKeown. You would rather save the Constitution and lose the countrv?

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