OCR Text |
Show HOOVER FIGHTS ! VICIOUS CYCLE As Engineer He Seeks to Level Out Booms and Slumps HI H It RY HI NT WASHINGTON. April w. As an engineer, not as secretary of commerce, com-merce, Herbert Hoover has set under way a study of how to ontrol or eliminate elim-inate the "bUBlneM ycle" which now BWlngfl lb" nation alternately from ..nods of prosperity to hard-time lev- : els of depression and unemployment At a conference called for Washlng-ton Washlng-ton March 21 representatives of trade associations will he asked to cooper ate in the study and to assist in carrying lout whatever final recommendations may bfl made. Hoover hopes to produce a gently undulating plan of general prosperity prosper-ity The new undertaking Is an out-rrowth out-rrowth of vtaWB and material devel-oped devel-oped by the president's unemployment unemploy-ment conference held last fall. Convinced that only sane and scientific sci-entific control of the economic tomtom tom-tom entering into the recurrent ups and downs of business can solve the problem that conference undertook. Hoover secured from the Carnegie Foundation an appropriation of ?50,-000 ?50,-000 finance an expert inquiry into how such control could be effected. Then he secured Wesley C. Stitch ell of the National Bureau of Eco-, Eco-, nomlc Research, of New York, to direct di-rect tho Investigation, with Edward Eyre Hunt as right hand assistant. To TAKE six MONTHS All sorts of national business, social so-cial and labor agencies will contribute con-tribute to the study, which Is expected expect-ed to consume about six months. In setting the Inquiry under way. Hoover Hoov-er says: "Thero Is a solution somewhere, and Its working out will be the . aest blessing yet given to our economic system, both to the cm- I , ployer and the employe " Th'- Viewpoint from which the ex- pertc who irt to Btudy the situation ; approach It Is set out by Hunt, who ! will he secretary of the committee i "Unemployment on a vast scale is i always result of business depres- I slon," says Hunt " The problem of , I unemployment, then Is only a part . ol the larger ones of preventing or , mitigating alternations of business ' I activity and stagnation I "The business cycle is marked by peak periods of boom between val- I I leys of depression and unemploy- pr,x.inrs OF boom : "Tho - eak periods of boom are . i! times of speculation, over-expansion, , extravagance in living, relaxation in effort: wasteful expenditure in industry in-dustry and commerce, with consequent conse-quent destruction of capital. "The valleys are marked by business busi-ness stagnation, unemployment, and -ui'ferlng. Both these extremes are vicious, and the vices of the one beget the , vices of the other. I "It Is tho wastes, the miscalculations, miscalcula-tions, the maladjustments grown I rampant during booms that make ln-! ln-! evltable the painful process of lhUl-I lhUl-I d.ition. j The most hopeful way to check jthe losses and misery of depression I U therefore to check the feverish ex-; ex-; tr&mes of 'prosperity ' And the hest time to act Is Jit a fairly early stage In the growth of the boom!" OR(; MZ Tlos ACTIVE Uniting In the effort to chart a I pleasantly level landscape for Amer-j Amer-j l.-an business, under1 Hoover s new I program, will he experts from the I Federated American Engineering so- I cletlas, the Department of Commerce, Com-merce, the Department of Labor, the I I'nlted Plates chamber Of commerce I National Bureau of Economic Re-I Re-I search, the Bureau of Railway Ero-t Ero-t nomlcs. the Russet Sage Kounda- tlon'and manv others. |