UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 165
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something about it from my childhood days; I know what a hungry
family means, and I want to tell you there is not a greater tragedy
than a man looking for something to eat, with a wife and children
at home waiting for him to bring it. You say that this rich Govern-
ment shall not even make an effort, because of some legalistic, fan-
tastic objection, to bring about a prevention of a recurrence of this
serious and acute unemployment situation? Now, that is the reason
this accurate information is absolutely essential.
It is not. only essential for us to begin to study the unemployment
situation but to know where it exists, what it is, how much is seasonal,
how much is cyclical; what happens to the man; what can we do about
it. These figures will reveal facts which will suggest other solutions,
as all facts do when once brought to our attention. They will be used
by the States, the municipalities and private industry, because they
show the economic trend back and forth. Proper use of these econo-
mic figures will prevent, I am as certain as I am addressing you, de-
pressions such as we have gone through. And we have got to be
prepared for that. What happened here last November? 1 know it
was heralded that the conference saved the country and that the tide
of unemployment, had been arresed by the conference at the White
House, where some resolutions were passed. Undoubtedly the Presi-
dent wisely called that conference; he did the best he could to prevent
this terrific economic collapse which was on the way and undoubtedly
the men who came there were prepared to help, but there had been no
planning. You can not begin public works, or even private industry
can not begin to construct work at once, unless they have planned
ahead of time. If they had had these economic figures and they saw
a depression coming, they could have provided against it and gone in
with their public work, provided they had their works already planned.
But we know, as a matter of fact, that from the time that we decide
to construct a public work, to the time that actual construction can
begin fully six months must elapse. In an economic emergency, all
of these efforts to stem the tide are futile, because we are unprepared.
However, if we have those accurate figures, we know the trend, and
can foretell the prospect. Unemployment is like other diseases;
it does not come over night; it comes gradually. If you have accurate
statistics, you can see the barometer dropping and, if you are prepared,
you will walk in and take up the slack and stabilize your economic
situation. Because what essentially is all this unemployment?
Unemployment results from overproduction ; the industries, not having
sufficient information, can not safely foretell prospective consumption
and, therefore, if they hear nothing but press notices—prosperity is
here; employment is plentiful —why they assume ‘Then we are
going to sell a lot of things next year.” They do not know the actual
facts. Thus they produce away beyond the prospective consumption;
then comes your collapse.
The problem is a Federal problem. All this talk about State
rights! In economic depression there are no State barriers. A
factory shut in Boston is bound to affect factories in other places
I mean if the men there can not buy shirts and shoes, some other
factory in some other city is affected thereby. It is a national
question. To see how serious it is I eompared, by means of what
meager statistics we had, the wages paid out in two months. I took
only factory work, which is only one of our economic activities. In
