CONSTRUCTIVE REMEDIES NEEDED 250
difficulty of carrying out such a program. The great difficulty
is in creating and maintaining an impartial and effective government
agency to exercise the necessary control to prevent
intolerable abuses by huge business combinations. . . .
I heartily endorse Mr. Javits’ suggestion that industry
should create its own organization to deal with industrial
problems instead of depending entirely or chiefly upon government
action. Certain it is, that business as a whole must
be better coordinated than it has been in times past if we are
to secure real prosperity, which can be attained only through
a reasonable coordination and uniformity in our industrial
levelopment and expansion.
Only by such coordinated efforts to prevent over-expansion
of investment and production in some lines to the detriment
of all kinds of business enterprise can we prevent violent
price upheavals accompanied by business depressions, crises
and unemployment. The government should do everything
possible to help smooth out the price and employment curves,
but business itself must assume the principal burden in bringing
about a better business organization, which will ensure
stable prices, expanding production, full-time employment,
and true prosperity for the whole country.
President George M. Verity, of the American Rolling
Mill Company, stated his entire sympathy for the new
proposals, and the real need of working out a practical
plan, but doubted somewhat whether industry had reached
the point where it would realize its needs and cooperate
on a national basis. He said:
I have read Mr. Javits’ article with a great deal of interest.
I agree with his main argument fully; in fact, I feel he
has stated the situation definitely and clearly.
That, however, leaves us just where we began and where
we always land; what are we going to do about it? . . .
I feel that each and all of our outstanding basic industries
must first reach a point where they see the need of it and are
willing “to think and act in terms of the general good.” Until
