other services rendered. Farmers owning their land might come under the scheme, keeping individual initiative and yet deriving the benefits of a collective economy.

In conjunction with the industrial syndicates a distribution of power and minor industries can be made in such a way as to employ farmers during the winter season, supplying local and even national necessities, perhaps wooden articles from neighboring forests. As a further guarantee of efficiency, the system of bonuses for performance, prevailing in industry, will be applied to agricultural corporations. As far as the system works, agriculture will be brought under the regime of planned economy. MARKETING AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

On the marketing side immense difficulties will be encountered and it will be the duty of the marketing syndicate under the National Economic Council, representing wholesaling and retailing interests, to work out the plan. Chainstores and mail-order houses point one way of development. The establishment of great storage houses and refrigeration plants, with branches, and the integration of those now under Federal and State supervision will eliminate wastage in haulage and handling, curtail the sphere and profits of middlemen, and open the direct routes between producers and consumers. Here, too, as in other divisions of planned economy, individual merchants may affiliate themselves with the marketing syndicate's corporations. In the end, however, with respect to all staples, the area of this hazardous occupation will be materially restricted, without closing the doors upon merchants dealing with specialties and objects of esthetic enjoyment.

Now we come to foreign affairs, which, strictly speaking, is a department of industry and marketing. Since an immense domestic market will be opened under national planning and attention will be directed primarily to the enlargement of this market, the feverish and irrational methods of unloading and dumping goods on foreign countries will be reduced to a minimum, if not discontinued entirely. The industrial countries of the world cannot live by taking in each other's washing. Here also is the most fruitful source of international rivalries and wars-the source of most burdens for diplomacy. Once rationalized, foreign exchange could proceed on the basis of reciprocal trade in necessities not well supplied by domestic enterprise.

Under the plan here proposed the foreign commerce of the United States will be carried on by a syndicate of exporting and importing corporations organized along the lines now laid down in the Webb Act of 1918 for the export trade. In this field as elsewhere there will be nothing new-merely an extension of principles and practices well established under prevailing legislation. The purpose of the syndicate, however, will not be to force firearms and trinkets on African savages, but to carry on a rational trade with other countries in such a way as to secure, on fair and favorable terms, the goods needed by the United States. It will not proceed on the assumption that the nation can get rich by dumping goods abroad at less than the cost of production. The syndicate will also control the issue of foreign securities in the United States. It will stop the reckless habits of financiers in making loans to irresponsible governments to be wasted in unproductive enterprises-a custom ruinous to American investors and

a curse to the peoples of the borrowing countries. Naturally the syndicate will also be a powerful aid to diplomacy, bringing the reason of commodity exchange to bear on the vagaries of ministers plenipotentiary.

As a phase of foreign policy associated with trade, American diplomacy will proceed on the basis of the Kellog Pact. It will recommend adherence to the World Court. It will frankly cooperate to the fullest extent in the economic conferences and conventions of the League of Nations, as it does now in a furtive manner. It will advise a cancellation of European debts on conditions that the armed forces of the world be brought down to a police basis. It will abandon the Coolidge theorem that the Army and Navy of the United States must be big enough to protect any American citizen who wants to make 10 percent on the bonds of Weissnichtwo or sell corn flakes, shoe horns, and collar buttons to the inhabitants of the world willy-nilly. For the policy of dominating the world, American diplomacy will substitute that of strict and adequate national defense-defense of the land and people of the United States-by universal military service, if Europe stubbornly refuses to come to terms on disarmament.

AMERICA TOMORROW

All this, it may be said, is too large, too general, too remote, and offers no help in the present emergency. That complaint may be faced, although it is sometimes better to suffer in an emergency than to do more harm in an effort to get out of it. While the program outlined above is being put into exceution, expedients may be devised in line with its provisions.

Let the President summon Congress in a special session to organize immediatley two of the syndicates to be ultimately fitted into the grand scheme one for agriculture and the other for building materials and housing. The first of these, with the consent of State legislatures, will begin immediately to carry into execution in each State the plan proposed by Governor Roosevelt, of New York, alluded to above; namely, buying up marginal land, reforesting, constructing highways, and building electric transmission lines (with or without the cooperation of private companies as circumstances may dictate). In each State the syndicate will also proceed to organize one or more agricultural corporations to establish corporate farming as outlined above on a large scale, in that way covering thousands of acres of public and private land with grand model enterprises.

The building materials and housing syndicate will proceed at once to a survey of the sum and submerged areas of great cities, make regional plans, and prepare a gigantic housing program. It will entrust construction to limited dividend corporations in each locality or, where this is not feasible, form special corporations for the purpose. It will enroll an army of 2 or 3 million men to tear down and build cities decent to live in and delightful to the eye, summoning to its aid the best architectural talent in the country. As each housing project will be directed by a special corporation, matters of management,

rentals, and ownership will be left to local circumstances. Until the general system of productive and distributive economy is organized, there will be many difficulties and hazards, but after that consummation housing will be geared into the development of industry. It should then work out smoothly.

These two undertakings will be financed by freedom bonds and sold with the zeal of war issues. And they will sell. If the hysterical governments of Europe should get into another war and the United States were drawn into the conflict, who would protest against the sale of a hundred billion dollars' worth of consols to pay for killing 10 million boys? Not a single patriot. Then will it be said that we cannot float one-tenth of the sum, if necessary, to save 5 or 6 million American citizens from the horrors of unemployment and pauperism—and enrich the country at the same time by adding grand capital works, wealth-creating enterprises? After a war, the people—that is, plain citizens-are poorer than before; after this heroic national effort, all will be richer in goods and still more important, in patriotic spirit. It ought not to be difficult to arouse enthusiasm for such a

cause.

Let the worst be said. Let it be prophesied that these agricultural and housing works will not "pay." Doubtless some money would be lost, but in the end there would be millions of acres of model farms and thousands of houses fit to live in. If the scheme fails, the properties can be sold on better terms than, let us say, unused munition dumps and the boats of the Emergency Fleet Corporation. Should they all fall into ruin, still they would be the noblest monument to human endeavor ever erected since time began, making America at doomsday unique among the civilizations of the earth.

But the project is not utopian; it involves the extension of practices already in effect; and brains and materials are available. If such a program were officially announced, its immediate effect would be to give the people of the United States assurance for the future; they would begin to spend where they now hoard against direful uncertainty; and the outcome would be confidence in the will and power of the Nation.

In summary, the scheme here outlined is no foreign concoction or importation. It is a purely native product. Even now it lies partly completed before us. It may be merely American destiny foreshadowed. In any case, it makes no break with American institutions and traditions. On the contrary, it integrates and accelerates processes already unfolding under our very eyes: according to the estimates of Gardiner C. Means, 200 corporations, managed by fewer than 2,000 directors control between 35 and 45 percent of the business wealth of the country, and they are growing 3 times as fast as the small corporations. Are they to be great aggregations of wealth selfishly administered or public service corporations operated on a basis of prudent investment and fair return? That is a fateful question, soon to be asked in tones of thunder, even if planned economy be rejected as chimerical.

But it is not chimerical. It is practical, for America has the intelligence, the organizing capacity, the engineering skill, the material endowment, and above all, men and women willing to make immense sacrifices for their children and their children's children. They have faith in the mission of their country. And in due time America will arise, shake off her lethargy, and put forth powers like those of our ancestors who founded this Nation and conquered this continent. If to the aged of little hope, planned economy appears remote and impossible, it must be said that it is not as remote and impossible as the very United States today would seem to the little band of men and women who landed under wintry skies at Plymouth three centuries ago. To take counsel and to dare, again and yet again, this is the true American spirit, and out of daring will come achievement far beyond our dim, chill imaginations.

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, DECEMBER 8, 1931, BY
HERBERT HOOVER

In meeting the problems of this difficult period, we have witnessed a remarkable development of the sense of cooperation in the community. For the first time in the history of our major economic depressions there has been a notable absence of public disorders and industrial conflict. Above all there is an enlargement of social and spiritual responsibility among the people.

The strains and stresses upon business have resulted in closer application, in saner policies, and in better methods. Public improvements have been carried out on a larger scale than even in normal times. The country is richer in physical property, in newly discovered resources, and in productive capacity than ever before. There has been constant gain in knowledge and education; there has been continuous advance in science and invention; there has been distinct gain in public health. Business depressions have been recurrent in the life of our country and are but transitory ***.

The emergencies of unemployment have been met by action in many directions. The appropriations for the continued speeding up of the great Federal construction program have provided direct and indirect aid to employment upon a large scale. By organized unity of action the States and municipalities have also maintained large programs of public improvement.

Many industries have been prevailed upon to anticipate and intensify construction. Industrial concerns and other employers have been organized to spread available work among all their employees, instead of discharging a portion of them. A large majority have maintained wages at as high levels as the safe conduct of their business would permit. This course has saved us from the industrial conflict and the disorder which have characterized all previous depressions.

Immigration has been curtailed by administrative action. Upon the basis of normal immigration the decrease amounts to about 300,000 individuals who otherwise would have been added to our unemployment. The expansion of Federal employment agencies under appropriations by Congress has proved most effective.

Through the President's Organization for Unemployment Relief, public and private agencies were successfully mobilized last winter to provide employment and other measures against distress. Similar organization gives assurance against suffering during the coming winter. Committees of leading citizens are now active at practically every point of unemployment. In the large majority they have been assured the funds necessary which, together with local government aids, will meet the situation. A few exceptional localities will be further organized.

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