OCR Text |
Show FACTS AND FIGURES, NOT PREDICTIONS. The man or woman who does his best to make the national recovery program a success can do no more, be I it much or little. Some persons and some companies are able to do more than others. It is the spirit that I counts. Probably there 'is not a man, j woman or child in the country who has the public welfare at heart that , does not hope for a restoration of i prosperity either through the present plan or any other that may be devised devis-ed by anybody. In that sense, therefore, there-fore, there are virtually no slackers. ! Even those who fear this drastic pro- ' gram will not "work," hope that it : does. I But it is well to keep our heads in this situation and to restrain impulses that might lead the public to believe 1 that overwhelming success is certain immediately. Overstatement will not help the cause. Gen. Johnson predicts that the employment rolls of the nation na-tion will be increased by the names of 5,000,000 workers by Labor day. Everybody trusts this prediction will come true. They would bo twice as happy if they were to find out on Labor La-bor day that 10,000,000 of the unemployed unem-ployed were back on their jobs and the wheels of industry were humming again as they hummed in the old days. But predictions are not of much value, "prosperity has been just around the corner" too often now for us to be guided solely by predictions. Indeed if they are too optimistic in tone they may do actual harm. Supposing Sup-posing those who are holding back on the recovery program, or are seeking ways to avoid complying with it, gain the idea that the job already has been I done as indicated by predictions of recovery re-covery administration leaders, they mav iust conclude that, t.hev nppd not: I do their part. Maybe they will "let George do it." This is a tremendous national ex-: ex-: periment in both economics and so-! so-! ciology. So far as anybody is aware, , nothing like it ever has been attempted attempt-ed before. Without guiding precedents we cannot know how it will turn out. We trust the results will be favorable but it is rather important not to raise the people's hopes too high lest they become discouraged should the benefits bene-fits not be as great as they are intended in-tended to be. If 2,000,000 more per- sons are at work a month hence than j are employed now, that will be. a tremendous tre-mendous help, but those who had been led to believe that 5,000,000i new employees em-ployees would be on their jobs may lose a little confidence in the prophets pro-phets in such case. Figures and facts rather than predictions are the indices 1 of recovery. |