Spread \(/ork Not", or -

The Forgotten Man \ilon't Stay Forgotten

AFORGOTTEN man won't stay forgotten.

1L If he can't get food for himself and starving dependents, he will kick over the traces and take it. Drive a man and his family to desperation, and he begins to ask-and answer-certain fundamental questions:

"Ilaven't I as much right to a living as any other man on the face of the earth? I have! Is it my fault that I can't find work ? It isn't ! If the big fellows who have been running the country fall down on their job, why shouldn't they be kicked out the same as I have been?"

Our statesmen, our financiers, our industrialists, our corporation executives cannot rightly claim they are entirely blameless for the appalling unemployment which engulfed this country and for the woeful lack of pre-arranged plans to cope with it. They gaily, blindly, went ahead, multiplying plants, multiplying production without stopping to ponder the upshot. Simultaneously with unpre.cedented expansion of productive facilities, American industry influenced Congress to heighten trade barriers, in the form df increased tariff schedules.

ORSE still: Little heed was paid to the alarming, portentous fact that, even while the boom was roaring along at maximum speed in 1928-29, unemployment was becoming widespread, a new economic condition. This writer began, early in 1928, to draw attention to this disturbing phenomenon and repeatedly urged America's foremost men of affairs to organize some kind of Institute for Industrial Co-ordination to study the whole unique situation and to evolve ways and means to deal with the terrific unemployment which would inevitably arise when the grossly overdone boom ended.

Here are sentences from one warning:

If industry refuses to lend a hand toward.supporting its human cast-offs, upon whom will or should the burden fall? It cannot fall upon the workers themselves if they have neither work nor employmgnt. In my humble opinion, no more vital question faces America than how to guide our economic evolution (or revolution) so as to take care of those injured, at least temporarily, by it. If industry doesn't tackle the problem, lawmakers will.

Later it was emphasized that:

Our rapidly developing efficiency, our wholesale installation of labor-saving machinery, our expanding utilization of electric power in industry, our creation of huge corporations, our colossal consolidations are all fine and wonderful and desirable-exceot for those thrown out of employment. The co-operation arrd coordination most urgently needed to-day are co-operation and coordination to take care of these individuals and families sacrificed by our industrial and financial .co-operation and co-ordination.

Again:

Until industrial and other_ leaders get together and work earnestty and conscientiousty towards this end (steadier employment), th'e major economic probtem confronting the nation will remain unsolved. Man doesn't exist for industry. Industry exists for rnan.

Nothing worthwhile was done. When the collapse came, there lvas no plan or program to cope with the resultant unemployment.

Now a serious effort is being made to piovide some work for the ten million or more unemployed. Walter C. Teagle, head of Standard Oil of New Jersey, has been devoting his whole time and inexhaustible energy to inducing employers to spread work over as many wage-earners as possible. Also, Andrew W. Robertson, head of Westinghouse, is leading a movement to stimulate expenditures to improve and renovate all kinds of .plants now that both labor and material costs are low.

Already more than a million idle men and women have been re-employed, at least on part time, by upwards of fi ve thousand,con,cerns.

But many employers and executives have not yet grasped the urgency of the need for sharing work.

This is an appeal-a warning-to them to act forthwith and to act wholeheartedly.

Of course, su.ch action may entail inconvenience. Of course, such action may entail some €ost.

But what would the alternative probably be?

Our unemployed have exhibited tremendous patience, tremendous docility, tremendous self-restraint.

But rve have no right to expect them to remain meekly submissive unless it is demonstrated convincingly to them that the employing classes are doing their utmost to combat unemployment and its harrowing sufferings.

R. TEAGLE, in some of his many addresses to gatherings of employers, aptly declares:

Unemployment puts. upon him who has property or a job the task of caring for him who has not. Each additi,on to iti ranks increases this burden and decreases the numbers who must st oulAii it. Unemployment makes taxes more, and the profits out of *t iJ they must be paid, less.

The time has come for the whole nation to unite in a concerted attack upon enforced idleness. The means are at hand. The share_ the-work nrovement provides ways of adding men and women to the payroll and of avoiding lay-offs.

It is the gulpo-sg of -the movement to provide work, not to take tt -away, and in his reliance upon this, the worker has the added safeguard that as work-sharing thins the ranks of the une-pioyed it cuts down competition for existing jobs.

Our commo-n objective is the restoration of good times. Wages T3\e. uq by far the largest part of the peopti's spending po*".. Dividends,. interest p?yments ind rents have melted l",av tTtJ s"o* in tle spring. As those who still receive salaries and -wages gain confidence, and as the unemployed return to work, pu.ct iiing Tiii expand.

Our ln-employed are not responsible for their idleness. most of them. _They mrlst be provided for-they will be. Ctaiitie.-*lli see to it that their bodies don't starve. we can do more ttt"r ttii for some of them. Make _part-time jobs, one, two, or a h;;dr;a: according to th€.quantity of work you'have to dlvide.' o"" t. t"i tiriii souls starve. Give them a hand up in their struggle to make ends meet. .Somebody, at_ some time, htlped each of fl-s along. i.i- u. repay that obtig-ation by helping the felow who is down. Tt. a;n;; ret htm De the torgotten man.

If work be not shared with the workless, the workless may cause us all to share something worse than de_ pression.-(Forbes Magazine).

Lumber Production Rcaches Lowest Level

Enough figures are available to predicate the prediction that lumber production in the United States for 1932 will total the lowest level in sixty years. It will be approximately 10 billion feet-a level that for many years was considered "normal" for Yellow Pine alone.

The "high" in lumber production was reached 25 years ago when a totd of 45 billion feet was manufactured in one year. In 1925, 1926, L927 and 1928 the total averaged about 36 billion feet. It sank rapidly during the past four years.

Will Lead Orange Chambet oJ Commcrce

John A. Christiansen, manager of the Barr Lumber Company at Orange, Calif., was recently elected president of the Orange Community Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Christiansen has been a resident of Orange for the past eight years, and has always taken an active part in the civic affairs of the community. He succeeds S. V. Mansur as head of the chamber of commerce.

Lumber Business Statistics For November

Chicago, Dec. 14.-The early part of November showed a noticeable decrease in the number of business troubles reported to the Lumbermen's Blue Book, but during the latter part of the month conditions were about the same as in November, 1931. Inquiries for special credit reports, following the trend of lumber orders placed, showed a slight decrease as compared with the same month a yeat ago. The volume of business placed for collection reflects a substantial increase.

The summary for the month of November in each of the years of 1931 and 1932 follows: