FIND THE CULPRIT!

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1932, Page 10

FIND THE CULPRIT!

American cablegrams feature starving millions along with opposition to President Hoover's re-nomination. Many people will comment: "Cause and effect!" , To blame President Hoover for the depression is about as reasonable as is the slogan of certain Republicans, "Back to Coolidge and Prosperity." This bracketing of prosperity with a political candidature is a penny wise policy; to claim credit for prosperity's tide is to invite ■■ discredit for the backwash, and a large number of voters will go with the current either way. Apart from political manoeuvring and the invention of catch-cries, iow people seriously believe that the Wall Street slump at the end of 1929 depended in any way on the election of Mr. Hoover or Mr. Coolidge in 1928. Two things had to happen—the breaking of the boom, and the blaming of the powers that be—and the only important question was whether the United States Government would find any remedy for the inevitable unemployment. So far as can be seen at present, Mr. Hoover leaned to the expedient of artificially created work, and had considerable aid in this direction from private, employers; but it remains to be proved that his palliatives are any better in principle or any. more substantial in results than similar palliatives elsewhere. The depression came like a wave, and Mr. Hoover is guiltless alike of cause and of cure. -