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Show i Public Works and Road Building in tho Times of Industrial Depression By ARTHUR WOODS, President's Conference on Unemployment. t Public works and road building in the times of industrial depression has long been an expedient to rcliovo the hardships of Buch periods. There is, of course, no cure for unemployment except employment; everything else is a makeshift, a palliative. If, therefore, there-fore, public worku can be increased as private industry decreases, a part of the trough of depression can perhaps per-haps bo filled up. It would clearly bring nbout no real improvement in the situation if public projects were started simply i& for (J,,, gnkc 0f providing jobs, and if the work accomplished, accom-plished, were not of service nnd value to tho community. Non-productive work, which docs not result in an increase of things people need, would prove simply n boomerang as a means of relieving unemployment. Work thnt docs not add to the store of needed things, thnt cannot bo paid for by what it creates, is in tho cud destructive rather thnn creative. Tho movement during the winter toward the construction of highways, high-ways, the building of bridges, nnd the erection of public works has been unprecedented in volume. Tho sales of irfunicipal bonds for public works in 1921 wcro about double those of nny previous year, and nearly three times tho amount of those for any year before tho war. In September the total sales of municipal bonds throughout the country amounted to $80,477,1(52. In October the figure ro3e to $113,787,230; and in November Novem-ber it was $117,950,261; whila in December it reached the unprecedented amount of $210,819,584. It is well to do, in times when ordinary business has slowc.d up, public works which are necessary, which must be dono nnyway within n few months or a year. Hut no matter how successful ouch efforts arc to alleviate them, these recurring depressions are intolerable. They must bo prevented," if there is any way to' do it, for the heavy price is paid in the suffering and anguish of our fellow citizens; the strain comes upon those least able to bcai it. XI was for this reason that the Conference on Unemployment called by tho President determined that, besides trying to help meet tho emergency emer-gency of this winter, it would make a vigorous and sustained effort, Parting right now, to try to find out the causes of industrial depressions and to doviso ways and means to prevent or mitigate them. This study iB already going on. It will take into consideration all facts of tho situation situa-tion and will try to work out somothing definite and practical so that we shall not have to face such calamities in the future. |
