Show Intense Problems Face N R A but Nation Shows Intent to Play Along By BURTON KLINE You sit at a plo pie counter Next to you L Is b J a gentleman who turns out to have Ideas You may never again see this per person on in this world It Is touch and go But he says Bays something As long as 33 you live you are going to remember remember remember re re- re- re member it This is what he tells you Its a revolution and nothing else that were we're living through A revolution revolution tion without blood But great now things are happening When chance companions say such thIngs they have a meaning Something Something Some Some- thing Important happened to the United States on the fourth of last March Every unit of ot the American population appears to feel it It is they who have brought it about This Is no bouquet to Mr Roosevelt He merely fronts a great change in the mentality of a people perhaps people perhaps the mentality of ot a world But where is this change headed After all no emotional drive gets anywhere anywhere any any- where without aid from the practical men who guide and control events What do these practical men think of the drift Talk to a New York business man manin mann lin in n a large way of doing things and this is what you hear Big business hit its psychological low ow ten days ago It then sent a delegation delegation dele dele- gation gallon to meet General Johnson It net met a man with a terrific job on his hands lands and a sane mind in his head It came away with a willingness s to play along with N R B A. A Big business nevertheless has also a terrific job on its hands So far its treatment from the government has seemed like flogging a willing horse to death It has been perfectly willing to be bethe bethe bethe the governments government's partner But this matter of adjusting itself to a new order order order or or- der of or things calls for practical rearrangements rearrangements rearrangements re re- re- re arrangements that demand enormous technical thinking It cant can't be done over night We realize the need for tor speed but we need a day or two to think things out BUSINESS IS WILLING In a word big business is perfectly willing from the New York end to play ball with the government It knows that it has to No other means of a return to times is in sight But the problem of ot technical adJustment ad ad- Is enormous Think of a few tangible examples Here is s the Woolworth concern It has its fixed prices How is it to meet the shorter week and the longer pay envelope and still pay its divi No concern that has done its business on that principle can change overnight whatever overnight whatever its belief In the new order at ot things Not all business is in such a Jam Just lust the same Take the A. A P P. outfit out cut fit Its food prices rise and fall by fractions Two pounds of peas may coat COlt 23 cents today tomorrow today tomorrow 25 cents Nobody kicks The A. A P. P is perfectly willing to string along with From this you ou nevertheless get a aline aline aline line on the immense technical problem lem of adjustment to the recovery act Business is willing but it has to sit down and figure It Is 13 bewildered and hesitant It Is resentful Perhaps with the better reason because it is willing It nevertheless is working along Ask the biggest men in Ira n financial New NewYork NewYork NewYork York and they tell you so II It lithey they are hesitant It is because they have to save themselves and answer their old commitments THE NEW ORDER But behind their state of ot mind is something else They sense that a anew anew anew new order of things has entered anc and planted itself They know and they tell you that the old days of limitless profits are over and done with They know that labor is going to cut them down They know as labor knows only too well that it lias has nas come out of the de de' depression the heaviest loser Millions of its membership proud American citizens have had to live on charity Much of this charity has been dis ds dis- dis by organized labor its coffers coUer have been lull full During good gooc times it has taken good and prudent care of Itself What it has done dono to take care of its own may never be known Without a murmur it has paid its bill But it has a sense of suffering It remembers rs It has hns a mind to collect NIn ty years ago it took the toil toll of the worker from sunrise to sunset to lo run the works of the world Since then civilization has given him break The hour eight day came caine In We Weare are coming to the hour 30 week as as' assure sure as fate The mere improvement improve ment meat in machinery dictates that In Inthe Inthe Inthe the past century the population of Europe has doubled and ours has bas mul mul- Machinery did it It opened up jp jobs It opened a vacuum Nature filled it with human beings I Now machinery has become too good food altogether It turns on the population latIon atlon it brought into being and says saY I I no longer need need all Of Go away j and do something else eIse The superfluous millions will not oblige This whole problem of the new deal is something intensely hu hu- man Big business begins to get a sense of it BIG BUSINESS BEWILDERED For instance in this way Go back backover backover backover over these same 90 years and stack up the rise of at wages against the rise of at dividends Old Ethelbert Stewart once head of the bureau of labor statistics sta ata statistics did it He found that In 90 years wages went up a lot By a big percentage But it was nothing to the therise therise therise rise in dividends Where one went up by the hundreds the other went up by the thousands Now if it you prowl about WallStreet Wall Wai Street you h Hear har sr men admit that the day of ot big dividends may be over They begin to question the profit tern tem Big business Is 15 bewildered on its own confession by more than Il its t technical tech h. h problems in adjusting i Itself elf to the new order It fears labor for tor one thing It sees in the recovery act collective col col- l tive bargaining To other things inthe inthe in inthe the same act it Is 13 blind The recovery act suspends for a aime time ime the antitrust laws All these trade rade associations permitted by the act may turn Into beautiful little lies ies What if labor is permitted to organize or or- Its It organizations simply bring together one labor h head ad to be hit It will not be hit all the same What bewilders big business is more than the he problem of fitting A. A P prices to x the new deal It doesn't know what whal has las happened Behind this thing that men at the pie counter recognize as a revolution is an overturn In human relationships Humanity has got up on its hind legs and told the world that it Is more valuable than money Hence the bewilderment of at big business S Copyright McClure Newspaper er Syn Syn- I |