PUZZLE OF DEPRESSION

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 33, 8 August 1934, Page 11

PUZZLE OF DEPRESSION

SEARCH FOR SOLUTION

UNEMPLOYED YOUTH

"Depression and the New Deal" was the subject of an address by Mr. Eobert K. Burns, a visiting debater from th University of Washington, _ who was the chief guest and speaker at the luncheon of tho Wellington Rotary Club yesterday.

"So not only are there few jobs for youth, but oven tho/youth' with training and education find few openings for employment, perhaps only by displacing ciders," said Mr. Burns. "But even more menacing than the lack of opportunity for future employment is tho decreasing opportunity for obtaining an education itself. Now there seems to be one alternative that is always gratuitously offered to youth, and that is the opportunity to go back to tho land. In many rospects this solution is. so shallow that I am not even disposed to consider it. To solve the problem of the unemployed, both for old and young, this has been tried in tho'United States and failed. To start up and continue1 on tho land without money today is simply impossible. We try to solve the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty by preserving the poverty and removing tho plenty. ■ "LOOSE TALK." "Instead of hearing , explanations of the admittedly hazy economics involved, we hoar only a lofc^ of f loose talk about 'recovery.' But no one seems to ask the very fundamental question, 'Recovery to what?' Sup-, posing we do.recover, what assurance have we that the economic1 machine won't break down again and catch us in an even worso position? In fact, with recovery that is just what would happen, for a speculative boom would be generated, industry would overproduce, and would cut down on production, cutting down bu purchasing power, making ■ for. more unemployment. ■ . ■ ' . "And so wo try to solve the puzzle of depression,, and we ;■ study . _ the economic history of these devastating business cycles, each, worse in effect as society becomes more complex; in despair 'yo virtually turn for inspiration to uod Almighty and Nature itself. '... . . Youth is convinced that tho factors of. depression, causing tho stoppage of the flow of goods to the masses who need them—that these are human factors, and can 1)0 controlled if they are properly understood . .. . And in our search, for truth, it is the job of the older generation, as leading business men, who in the last analysis influence Governments, oducational policies, and public opinion, to help .ns brush, aside the troubles and help us seek new means to solve these radical dislocations in our society.''