AMERICAN PARADOX

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19097, 19 August 1936, Page 14

AMERICAN PARADOX

RECOVERY OP BUSINESS ARMY OF UNEMPLOYED' DISORDERS FEARED VANCOUVER, Aug. 8. Business. news in the United States is so good that many thoughtful officials are becoming seriously alarmed. They feel that the country is slipping into a false sense of security and wellbeing, from which it might suffer a very rough awakening. Under the surface-picture of dividends being doubled, stock market values soaring and sales volumes climbing to 1929 peaks, they know that there are still the uncounted millions of unemployed who would starve without public aid. They know also that industrial trouble of nation-wide scale awaits only the first small explosion to set it off, and' that producers and consumers alike may share large quantities of grief, in the coming months from the derangement of food supplies caused by this , summer’s drought on the plains. They are most worried by the danger that the country generally may be lulled by ..seeming prosperity into thinking, that.tne depression is.ended altogether and that it is time for hardboiled retrenchment on relief to *the unemployed. They assert lhat if adequate relief is not maintained, the nation will face something much worse than the necessity to dig up more taxes to pay-for it. Plainly, they intimate desperate rioting, if not revolt. UNRULY MOBS Events in two State capitals have just given keen point to these fears. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a mob of jobless men .virtually took possession of the' Senate Chamber. They were enraged at the cutting-off of relief and the delay of the Legislature in appropriating new funds. Invading the galleries while the Senate was in session, they howled imprecations and hurled pieces of wood down bn the Senators. The mob has been camping in the Capitpl Building all the week, eating and sleeping there, and hanging its washing on the statues of departed statesmen. . Similar scenes occurred recently in the New Jersey Capitol at Trenton, and some hold they are only a foretaste of what Washington would suffer if Government aid were discontinued. Officials following this line of thought reason that liberal relief is cheap insurance against revolution. Among social workers there, is a rising complaint that President Roosevelt has never permitted a census of the nation’s unemployed, or at least has never published the result if one has been made. Figures are left to the guesswork of private organisations and vary widely, according to the interests of the groups publishing them. The American Federation of Labour says that there are more than 10,00,000 jobless, while the United States Chamber of Commerce says that the total is below (i,000,000. The general business situation is in marked contrast to the confusion’ on relief, There is no doubt about a. vast improvement. The United States Steel Corporation doubled its quarterly dividend on preferred stock and reported earnings on the common shares for the first time in five years. The du Pont de Nemours Companyannounced earnings twice those of the same quarter last year. “BEST IN 15 YEARS” Government reports showed retail sales in small towns and rural districts 11 per cent over those of last year. The Chicago Mail Order Company reported the highest earnings for 15 years. Even the United States Chamber of Commerce hailed business in the first seven months of the year as the best in physical volume since 1929. The Democratic Nevv-Dealers see the good business news as a hopeful augury for the re-election of President Roosevelt. Their Republican opponents declare that revived business strength means the election of their candidate, Governor A. M. Landon.