Show i now no 0 ap no no nono t A L t 31 r r fa FT P if washington there is an era ol 01 good feeling going the rounds thai that is quite different dif feren era of than anything we good feeling have had since early in 1929 it is being promoted with a great deal of enthusiasm and present results as well as indications justify the promotion work that is going on in the new deal press agent circles this era of good feeling is quite an interesting thing from another angle namely politics it is being used by the politicians again to es cablish president roosevelt in the same situation as he found himself at the beginning of his first term in the white house I 1 am afraid he is being built up again as a super man and in politics a superman or his position is hard to maintain in the public mind business also is indulging in this era of good feeling business al ways puts its best foot forward just as lovers do it wants to develop a spirit of good will on the part of the public and it wants to show its finan cial backers how things are coming along all hunky dory there is noth ing wrong in the attitude it is per factly logical and human and it is very interesting to see this wave wane of healthy feeling grow the important as well as the in terest mg irig thing about this era of good feeling is that to the expert students it shows a gradual if not conclusive decline in depression conditions it proves that things are on the up grade not that they are at the top yet but that a momentum is being established which may carry the economic recovery to the top if the federal govern ment settles down and treats busi bus ness with fairness As I 1 said above new deal press agents are promoting this business recovery for all that it is worth naturally they are attributing it to the re election reelection of mr roosevelt as the basic factor in this upward surge of business they are cap ital vitalizing izing it to the fullest because by so capitalizing it the political party in power gets its due share of credit there is no doubt that they will continue on this course because everyone likes to read or hear about improved business conditions resto ration of dividend payments in m creasing volume of traffic any and all things that show the nation is slowly but surely getting back on its economic feet the new dealers are ing from the housetops how pres dent roosevelt has accomplished all of these things there comes a dis note from business itself business leaders just like hohti clans want credit for whatever is accomplished whether they are re or someone else they do not care any more than politicians whether the credit properly is theirs it is simply an exposition of the vain glorious trait that seems to exist in nearly everyone business is seeking t to 0 show that it is pull pulling ing itself together open ing new factories whose raising wages in the credit spite of new deal policies with the handicaps that some of those poll cies include so busin business e ss is seek ing to counterbalance the politicians and the politicians speaking through new deal press statements are trying to fortify their own tion as saviors of the country nei ther one is correct without doing too much debunking I 1 believe it ought to be said that president roosevelt Hoo sevelt and his associates have executed some government policies that have been helpful to the busi ness structure with equal frank ness it ought to be said that busi ness leaders have taken the bull by the horns and have proceeded to help lie ap materially in putting commerce and industry back on the right track again neither one ought to take too much credit some credit is due each but neither one nor both together is entitled to claim all of the credit for the recovery of busi ness that is now underway the answer to the upward swing of business lies chiefly in the fact that the depression has worp itself out it would have worn itself out just the same whether the admin was new deal or hcan lican it would have accomplished just as much in the way of ex banded buying power and increased production whether mr roosevelt was re elected reelected or whether he had been defeated and governor landon of kansas had been elected at the end of the recent national cam laign I 1 am reminded by this discussion of a remark that the late eugene black made while he was governor of the federal reserve board on that occasion I 1 asked him whether there were signs of the end of the depression his reply was not yet he added however that the depression would destroy itself as every other depression in history had done and that when this point ebli of exhaustion had been reached commerce and industry would take an upward swing then he added with reference to some of the economic students of the adminis tra tion in power it will wear itse t f out and good times will come back again and every doggone professor asor and economic theorist in the world will try to claim credit for it so I 1 think it can be said without equivocation that if anybody or any thing is entitled to credit for the indicated recovery movement we had better be fair and admit it was a combination of circumstances not the least of which was the natural law of supply and demand it s seems utterly silly to me for any in dividu als or groups of individuals to at tempt to corral all of the praise those who have access to the mar ket pages of the great metropolitan daily newspapers wage must have been increases impressed by the rapid fire an noun cements coming from big in du dustral corporations of wage in creases bonuses for employees and melon cutting in the form of dm bends for the shareholders they must have been impressed like wise with the sharp rise in security prices that obviously has re fleeted the expanded business and increased earnings A prosperous nation may not al w ways ays be a happy one but there I 1 is s a certain psychology about a prosper ous nation that makes it carefree it is a psychology that makes the average man and woman forget to a large extent about the recent pinch of economic displacements and as well those same people are inclined ned to disregard and give no consideration to the morrow let us look into those circum stances when corporations or other forms of business have reasonable years in their particular lines early in the winter they begin to see what the year s total will be they can figure rather accurately what the returns will be in the last two months say after they have hae made their totals for the first ten months of the year so whenever they reach that stage in a reason reasonably ably successful year they can make their plans for distribution of the profits now we have a tremendously high tax rate on corporation sur pluses and we have rather high tax rates on incomes of in dividu als corporations and other busi nesses therefore start figuring how to do the best they can with the earnings of the year some of them determine that their employees should share substantially in the profits of their labors others want to distribute as much of these earn ings as they may to their stock holders because such a showing creates a demand in the market for their shares and such a demand is influential in establishment of the corporation corporations s credit for borrowing if it needs to borrow from the banks in either event corpora tion managements obviously give considerations to the tax the corpo ration would have to pay and I 1 think it is not a matter of condee nation for them to turn over as much of their profit as they can to those interested in the business instead 0 of f to a government which wastes so much to be perfectly fair it must be said that the money now being dis tri tributes buted either in dividends or in bonu bonuses es to workers or in wage in e creases was earned before the re c cent ent election its distribution how ever eer is motivated largely on prospects for the future in other words those responsible for these dis tribu eions of earnings feel that they can let that money out of their hands they may not be distributing all of the sums available but the era of good feeling is accepted by all of them as indicating the chances for continued earnings are bright I 1 have merely touched on the ef feet of distribution of earnings among the holders how it of capital it is works out just as important to consider t the h e effect of distribution of these earn ings on the laboring classes labor has been convinced under the amer ican system for many yens years alit it at is entitled to some share of the prof its from its products employers are taking that same view to a greater extent than anywhere ele in the world when labor gets bonuses or gets increases in its pay there is a reaction among those workers who have sound judgment that prompts them to do the best they can on their jobs that is to say they become contented work ers and they are less susceptible to the propaganda of radicals who seek to promote strikes and labor disturbances to further the ends of communism that is a part of the era of good feeling as much as the added earnings of corporations or the enthusiasm of politic politicians ins over victory 0 western newspaper un on u t fc afar w taij Bist |