FOREWORD Following an intensive appraisal of current and emerging manpower problems, conducted from May through December 1963, the Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower presented its findings and recommendations in a report entitled "Toward Full Employment: Proposals for a Comprehensive Employment and Manpower Policy in the United States." Taken together, the whole emphasis of the recommendations by the majority members of the subcommittee was that the employment goal, among those established by the Employment Act of 1946, should be more vigorously pursued. It was suggested that the legislative mandate to the executive branch be strengthened if necessary by amending the act. On October 1, 1964, Senator Wayne Morse, of Oregon, and Senator Gaylord Nelson, of Wisconsin, joined with me in sponsoring a bill designed to achieve that purpose. Since specific legislative proposals in this connection were not taken up during the 1963 hearings, I requested the staff to compile a selection of materials which would provide subcommittee members with a broad background of developments leading to the Employment Act of 1946, and also with appraisals of its adequacy and effectiveness over the past 18 years. The material in this volume spans the late 1920's and the great depression, a period which spawned revolutions in economic thought and policy. It is the fifth volume in the series, "Selected Readings in Employment and Manpower." Subsequent volumes will complete the historical background and review. I am sure it will prove to be a valuable working document for Members of the 89th and subsequent Congresses. It is essential to the deliberations of this subcommittee and I therefore order it to be printed. JOSEPH S. CLARK, Chairman, Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower. CONTENTS Recent Employment Movements, by Sumner H. Slichter, from Survey Pago Causes of Unemployment, Senate Report 2072, 70th Congress, 2d session, submitted by Mr. Couzens, February 25, 1929- Summary of an Investigation of Unemployment by the Brookings Institute, statement by Isador Lubin before the Senate Committee on Labor and Unemployment, 1929, by William M. Leiserson, from Survey, April 1, 1929 Busy Machines and Idle Men, by Beulah Amidon, from Survey, April 1, 1929. Let Out, by Isador Lubin, from Survey, April 1, 1929- Crash, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., from "The Crisis of the Old Order," 1651 Institutional Frictions and Technological Unemployment, by Alvin H. Hansen, from the Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1931-. Business Looks at Unemployment, by Julius H. Barnes, from the Atlantic Causes of World Depression, by John Maynard Keynes, from the Forum, The Hungry City, a Mayor's Experience With Unemployment, by Joseph L. Heffernan, from the Atlantic Monthly, May 1932- "Watchman, What of the Night?" Isaiah 21:11, by John Kenneth Gal- braith, from "The Great Crash," Houghton Mifflin Co., publishers---- PART II. DEPRESSION PROGRAMS AND PROPOSALS Efforts in Congress to Stabilize Employment-Chronology 1907-29, from From 1921 Forward, by Edward Eyre Hunt, from the Survey, April 1, 1929... 1738 The Senate Takes Stock, by James Couzens, from the Survey, April 1, 1929. 1740 An Unemployment Program, editorial from the Nation, December 10, 1930. 1750 Responsibility in Albany, by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., from "The Crisis of the Old Order," Houghton Mfflin Co., publishers_ Fighting Unemployment, by Henry Raymond Mussey, from the Nation, Message to Congress, December 8, 1931, by President Herbert Hoover_.. The Immediate Unemployment Problem, by Sumner Slichter, from "Potentials of the American Economy," Harvard University Press. The Agenda of Reform, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., from "The Crisis of the Old Order, Houghton Mifflin Co., publishers. The Case for Federal Relief, by Gifford Pinchot, from the Survey, January 1814 Unemployment Insurance, an American Plan To Protect Workers and Avoid the Dole, by Frances Perkins, from the Survey, November 1, Billions for Relief, by Mauritz A. Hallgren, from the Nation, November 1876 Jobs for All, by Jonathan Mitchell, from the New Republic, July 10, 1935.. The Ideology of the Second New Deal, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., from "The Politics of Upheaval," Houghton Mifflin Co., publishers... Roosevelt's Tree Army, by Jonathan Mitchell, from the New Republic, Can We Employ the 8 Million?-A Debate, from the Forum, March 1937__ Unemployment Relief and Insurance, by Emerson Ross, WPA, from the INTRODUCTION As the 89th Congress convenes, less than three decades have elapsed since the publication of Keynes' "General Theory of Employment Interest and Money." Less than two and a half decades have elapsed since World War II brought the great depression to an end. Yet in these three brief decades most of what may be called American employment and manpower policy has evolved. This volume provides an account of the great depression of the 1930's and the thinking and policies directed at relieving its effects and starting recovery. In 1929, just before the great crash, before statistical measurement of unemployment even existed, there was already a growing concern about unemployment, its causes, and the possibility that it was increasing. The article by Sumner H. Slichter, a distinguished Harvard economist, represents a professional look at what were disturbing employment declines in several industries, and an analysis of several alternative explanations. This makes for an interesting parallel to current discussions of unemployment, especially in light of the concluding plea for "efficient national organization of the labor market." Nor was concern limited to professionals in the academic world. The report of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor in March 1929 is an interesting reflection of congressional concern. The study commissioned by the committee, and conducted by Isador Lubin, of the Brookings Institution follows. William Leiserson's article discusses some of the characteristics of "prosperity unemployment"notably the plight of older workers. Beulah Amidon assembled some specific examples of technological change and worker displacement of the times. Isador Lubin's article "Let Out" is a vivid account of the personal impact of unemployment in a market of limited employment alternatives. Taken together, these represent a rather widespread concern about joblessness in a year in which unemployment averaged an estimated 1.6 million or 3.2 percent of the labor force. John Kenneth Galbraith, a distinguished economist, ambassador, and historian of the great crash has said: Some years, like poets and politicians and some lovely women, are singled out for fame far beyond the common lot, and 1929 was clearly such a year. Like 1066, 1776, and 1914, it is a year everyone remembers * * * A reference to 1929 has become shorthand for the events of that autumn. Those events are seen through the eyes of two observers in this volume. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., author of "The Roosevelt Years," cast the events mainly in their political environment; Frederick Lewis Allen's treatment is more descriptive of the stock market and those who operate in it. "Statistics are bloodless things" states Frederick Lewis Allen at the start of his description of events in 1932. The skill with which the data were made human, places "Black Depression" high among the descriptive classics of the human misery, frustration, and hope |