?■• >' ■ ■ ; - ' r. : .- : .• : ■
Issued Twice a Month
Peterson’s Paper”
VOLI ME 2
i»ulNN, N. c:; JULY 1, 1934.
*V Ascription Price $1.00 a Year
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NUMBER 12
WHOLESALE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT BECOMING A PERMANENT POLICY
An Industry Which Can Be Operated by a Portion of the People Cannot Absorb the Whole- People. The
Surplus Not Needed in Productive and Associated Activities Must Be Employed in General Betterment
Work. That Means That the Government Must Tax as It Has Never Taxed Before, But in a Painless Way.
Plenty Produced for All Assures! Possibility of With drawing Plenty for the Public Employees and Leaving
Plenty for the Privately Employed.
There were several courses* by which an attempt
at rescuing the country from the economic morass
into which it had fallen, might havebeen made." An
assumption of the control of production and of dis
tribution by the government was the short way out,
but the country was unprepared for such a procedure.
Tlie course actually adopted was one of quasi-con
trol plus immense public emyloyment with borrowed
money.
The control, as comprehended in the NBA and
other organizations, cannot be considered a gratify
ing success, as whatever of improvement in business
conditions has occurred is largely due to the expendi
ture of borrowed money in direct relief and in gov
ernment emyloyment.
Let the expenditure of borrowed government funds
cease today and the country would again be in the
depths of depression, j c-i. -
>'ot only’do the f developed promise no foil
private employment ofthe millions now 'either em
ployed by-<fbegpvern&ehtLor:being in -some measure
: supported?!** the governnjep^ .-bnt ^ t^e jt
At ihe
Spwej*.
may conceife., t
* , Hip Alternatives'
It has been long conceded that apportion o£ the '.
people with modern machinery can produce all the
goods marketable in this country, even if consump
tion were at full tide. In that case, the alternatives
are: - ’ •’ ' v'
First, a division of the work of production among
all the people by making the days unreasonably
short. That process would mean, also, the reduction
of acreage under the control of the individual fanner
to such area as would be merely large enough to pro
duce partial subsistence directly and to furnish the
cash through sales to finish the support of the fam
ily. That is a poverty program. It also contem
plates a nation of piddlers. America, it should be
hoped, will never adopt such a scheme. It is also
almost certain that it will never again be satisfied
with the haphazard scheme which is the author of
the anomalous sight of poverty rampant in the midst
oi supemuity oi goous.
The other alternative is to leave the production
and distribution of tangible wealth to the number
necessary to produce PLENTY, working a reasonable
number of hours daily or weekly, and for the rest of
the people to be employed by the government in the
general betterment of conditions.
Such a program means all the goods we should
have under the former scheme and, in addition, the,
results of the general betterment work of millions;
In fact, it seems reasonable that the fewer neces
sary, without undue hardships, to produce and dis
tribute all the wealth needed for all the people, the
better it would be—the more would be free to -give
their energies to making a’paradise of America,
Borrowing No Fit Support for (Such a Program.
The administration thus far has made appropria
tions and borrowed funds upon the assumption that
the appropriations for relief and public employment
are but emergency appropriations. Mr. Roosevelt
himself estimated that the government income upon
a basis of present levies would be sufficient with the
full flow of business to pay back the borrowing
within a very few years. But if that full flow of
business may not be 'expected without a full con
sumption, and if that full consumption cannot arrive
without full employment, and if full employment can
only come by the government’s employing fhe other
wise idle millions in general betterment^ work, it is
Plain that appropriations, perhaps larger ones, must
continue and that the emergency appropriations be
co®e the ordinary. _ ■ ,"
. Tlie borrowing regime is an emergency measure.
But there is no hope, under the present regime or
that promised, for a discontinuance of government
employment, even if such a discontinuance were de
sirable. And it is anything but desirable if the pro
duction and distribution of wealth may be accom
plished by only a portion of the population. Common
sense, in that case, demands that the portion un
needed in industry, including every form of produc
''thih 6f' wealth and its distribution, be employed in
general welfare work.
With the emergency program become the ordinary,
it is evident that it con do longer depend upon bor
rowed funds for support. The country in that case
must come to a pay-as-you-go basis. The budget must
be actually balanced. At present it is. considered
“balanced” if the income is sufficient to pay the ordi
nary expenses of the former regime , and to meet the
payments of interest on all government debts and to
paj^off ..any bonds falling toe. Nobody has as yet
thought of providing for the payment of the huge
principals dutstaadiag. **
Ah?;*■permanent
general. welfar^^^Sj£»fSyjp^^f%^
nual income would be
'greater'than ahy'eveV conected under pfevibus ievieis;
A (Division By Three*
Under the old regime, the wealth produced by the
• co-operation of labor -and capital was theoretically
divisible between capital and labor. However, it is
too well known that middle men, speculators, and
every kind of imaginable parasite succeeded in ap
propriating a goodly Share; if hot the lion's share.
of it. V.
Under the new regime, if that* regime'4s forced, as
it seems it will be, to make permanent the support of
a large percentage of the population either-by direct
relief or ,by actual employment for the general bet
terment, the middle men, speculators, and parasites
must not be allowed to guzzle up sudh an immense
share of the common wealth but must surrender their
place as a wealth absorbent to the government.
Tithing The logical Course. >
If the resources for the prdouction of the needed
wealth of the country shall be intrusted to a portion
of the people with the understanding that the rest
of the people are to work for the common welfare, it
will be only just that the producers of wealth sur
render the proper share for the support of the wel
fare group. It may be recalled that those who re
mained in camp and guarded the goods during the
pursuit and battle shared, alike with the actual con
querors, in the booty obtained.
Let the government start a full tide of consumption
by employment at adequate wages of all unemployed
people and it will soon Ibe manifest what portion of
the people are necessary to produce the goods needed.
That dtermined, it would be known what portion
must be actively employed by the government * or
cared for because of age or infirmity. The percen
tage determined, the share of the wealth produced
which it would be requisite for the government’ to
seize is also determined.
Sharing of Actual Goods Seems Wiser.
The payment of the portion needed for the welfare
work should prove no real hardship. The assumption
is that PLENTY has been produced—plenty for ALL.
If so, plenty will, be left when the welfare group’s
part is taken for the producers. And plenty is
PLENTY. ... ■ . •'.
The curse of the country has be^n the demand that
all exchanges and all payments be’made in money,
with money as the measuring unit of good. In the.
cbb% assumed, it would be more expedient for the
governmentto collect its share as far as possible in
goods at the very source and distribute its benefits jn.
goods. A bushel of potatoes in Florida, New -Mexico,
or Maine means the same thing as a unit of human
welfare, but a dollar does not mean the same in all
those States. The inequity of the dollar yardstick dn
the payment of workers should so far as possible l>e
avoided. Moreover, if the government waited till
commercial turn-overs should produce adequate cash
surpluses to discharge the tithing account, it would
never be able to collect its share. *
- Plenty pf Work.
There is plenty of general welfare work needed to
keep millions busy. But as adequate funds should
come to be general the demand for new products
would so increase that a greater and greater per
centage of the workers would have to be drafted for
productive wprfc. And by the time every man should
be in sight 6jfr''h cosy home, comfortable furniture, a
decent automobile,"essential means of recreation and
S^f-improvem«at, the problem' would possibly be- ;tq
tdjjaiiough xpe^' who hpuJd’Jbe spared from produe*.
V 'And thus, after, all, the emergency ap
of maintaining millions of men in goverwaeht bmpfqy^
can be financed by borrowings.
In the above, I have looked along the course
former developments and activities designate as the
logical one to be followed. The contemplation of any
other method of maintaining a full production and a
full consumption' and the benefit of the demanded
restoration and general welfare work is to suggest a
complete failure of the administration’s program thus
f^r a#id a new program utterly unrelated to concep
" tions and achievements of the past year and a third.
If I see you board a southbound train, I am justified
in assuming that you do not intend to go north. When
I -see you straightway going north, I must decide
■ that you went as far south as you desired or that
you have concluded that it is better to go north. ’
Wholesale Government Employment a
Permanent Policy. •
In the case of the government, however, the goal
has been set—“no person shall hunger or go cold'in
America.” To stop government employment sb Ibng
as that goalis not reached is necessarily a disavowal
of an intention to attain the goal. And if two-thirds
of the people, say, are able to produce all the wealth
necessary or marketable in America, it is evident'that
r y • f ’
the other third can be employed only in government
work—work for the general welfare of the whole
people. (
Therefore it is evident that the wholesale employ
ment of people by the government and the conse
quent expenditure of immense funds is a permanent
policy of government, and. that the next Congress
may understand that it is time to begin to plan-to
levy taxes upon a- basis that has never before been
contemplated. - >
- - - • C-S •* - - ' t
•' r : 71 -f - *
.The death of few persons in Nqrth.Carolina‘has
called forth the regrets called forth by that of Mrs.
ChaSyG. Rose of Fayetteville. The Fayetteville Ob
server suggests that the confident faith and undis
turbed equanimity of-Mrs: Rose in the face of death
of whose nearness she was, aware was the best ser
mon preached in Fayetteville in a long time. And
The Voice would say that the column which bore that
editorial comment, under the title, “There Is No
Death to Those WSth Faith.” and another “Russia
Educating Itself Back to God,” carried two as teal
sermonettes as I have read in a long- time. I feel
‘ disposed to copy .one or both. : ‘ . ; - .V -