72 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES
usual amount of unemployment.” We have always talked as if
nothing could be done about it.
It seems to me that we have heard for generations the words “the
uusual amount of unemployment.” We have supposed that evils had
to grow worse before business could grow better, It was what was
referred to as the economics of original sin. Some writers have tried
to show it was due to the spots on the sun.
The economics of original sin is what I would call the economics of
despair. It is the economics which have been dominant for genera-
tions; and one of the chief reasons why nothing has been done hitherto
by governments in a constructive way toward the solution of the
problem of unemployment.
Great talk has been made about the necessity of action and reaction.
In recent years we have arrived at a different expression of economics,
It is the economics of faith; faith in the capacity of men to use their
reason to control their economic destiny.
Now, why do I give this long introductory? It is an attempt to
point out that these three bills are of more significance than most
people realize. They are expressions of the abandonment of eco-
nomics of original sin and despair. They are expressions of the
opinion that we can do something about it. We do not have to sit
around and watch business conditions go from bad to worse: before
we can make them better,
That is why I say that these are not simply trivial. You may say,
for example, as I heard said to-day, that $150,000,000 provided for
emergency public works is merely a drop in the bucket. It would
provide for 300,000 men employment for 100 days at $5 a day. Even
80, to each of these 300,000 men who can go through a winter unem-
ployed, it is not a drop in the bucket. It is very important to them.
Under the bill this is appropriated by advance planning at a time
when it is but a measure of prevention. So it provides also for the
employment of other men. But that is not the biggest thing about
this bill. The biggest thing about this bill is that for the first time
in history we have recognition of the principle that the Government
of the United States may in its expenditures for the conduct of its
own business, take into account the conditions of business in general.
Mr. Cerrer. This $150,000,000 is in excess of and in addition to
all the other appropriations?
Mr. Foster. The bill provides only that this $150,000,000 shall be
expended in reference to business conditions as shown by indexes of
unemployment, ete.
Mr. CerrLer. There would be this in addition to other employment?
Mr. Foster. If the bill is unsound in principle it should not pass.
If it is sound there is no reason why it should not be extended from
time to time to other Federal appropriations which are subject to
allocation. As far as visible the principle could be applied to other
appropriations of the Government.
Furthermore, it is only carrying out in the realm of public business,
what President Hoover last fall urged private business to carry out.
He called in the officers of public utilities and railroads and other
public bodies, and other large corporations, and urged them in their
appropriations to take account of business fluctuations, to appropriate
more money when business needed more wages; less money ine time of
boom, when there was less need for wages to be spent for consumers
goods.
