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Show BehindM By PaulMallon Released by Western Newspaper Union. CONFIDENCE FOR POSTWAR ERA LACKING CHARLESTON, S. C The war cities down this Atlantic seaboard, bulging at their seams, are worried and confused about their postwar prospects (as every collection of people everywhere.) Food is good, money plentiful. Rationing Ra-tioning has been less painful than in Washington and New York. Th people have gotten through the wai better. But just about half of the authorities are apprehensively anticipating depression and unemployment, un-employment, while singular as it sounds the other half ex-" pect the opposite result, good postwar business, built on great private spending, with the towns holding much of their growth and the people retaining much of their improved financial position. This divergence of opinion ties in precisely with a poll of national business management, recently made, showing also that about half the employers are optimistic, half pessimist. The pessimist side, as I find it, is based upon logical reasoning running run-ning like this: People have money in banks and bonds in unprecedented amounts, it is true, but their very apprehension about the future will keep them from spending it to buy all the things they need. The constantly advertised attitude of the labor union leaders who are trying to pry big postwar spending appropriations out of congress, has strengthened the already latent fear among the people that a depression must follow a war. This is a new and true condition which has not been noticed before, and it makes more critical the prospects pros-pects that reconversion of factories to peace production will lag. The auto industry (which is the nation's foremost) will take at least six months to change over, they now say. But perhaps the most Impressive Impres-sive line of new thought on the subject is that our war production pro-duction has been so greatly expanded, ex-panded, this nation cannot possibly pos-sibly absorb the products of its own machines. I have heard the contention from a foremost industrial in-dustrial leader that our airplane factories in one week can make enough planes for a whole year of our postwar needs. Some means must be found of selling our production abroad, but no foreign nation has much with which to buy or barter and it takes a long time to build up an equalized foreign trade, not founded on credit (which in most instances would amount to giving our goods away at the American taxpayers' expense.) ex-pense.) Can Avoid Depression. These are powerful and unquestionably unques-tionably true analyses of the problem prob-lem ahead. Nevertheless the forecast fore-cast can and should be avoided. The divergence of opinion, in the first place, does not represent confusion. con-fusion. These authorities and employers em-ployers are thinking of their own businesses. Their split, therefore, seems to forecast that perhaps half the businesses busi-nesses of the country will suffer unemployment and depression, but that the other half logically can anticipate good business. Then, furthermore, this much is true: There never has been so much money in the hands of the people and never a time when people needed everything for living. The government has control con-trol over the release of men from the services, control over business reconversion through war contracts, control over every ev-ery aspect of the economic situation. I cannot bring myself to believe that there could possibly be depression depres-sion in this country during the IVi years following peace unless the government makes a bad job of this, too. Every ingredient for success is present. Wisely managed capitalism, capital-ism, working under Imaginative, clear minded leaders, should certainly cer-tainly make all these ends meet. The trouble today is no one has taken hold to furnish that leadership. leader-ship. The propaganda from Washington Wash-ington has been wrong in disturbing disturb-ing confidence. An inspiring leader there, who thought he could do the job, could soon correct this condition. condi-tion. As for the reconversion of men and machines, good business brains certainly could work this out. If men of proven success were put to this task (as Knudsen, Nelson and all business was put to the war task at the outset) the technical features of reconversion would justify confidence, confi-dence, certainly this is no tougher than the war task. The only real cause for pessimism pes-simism then lies In the fact that Washington has shown no signs of furnishing the proper leadership. Politics and personal enmities thould be dropped for this business. |