LABOR: Third Winter

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"One good old word — work" was President Hoover's first prescription for meeting the Depression which crashed down upon the country in the fall of 1929. On his orders a potent army of industrialists, railmen, motormen, bankers, manufacturers, public utilitarians and labor leaders marched to the White House where they pledged "business-as-usual." More public works were planned to absorb unemployment. Private companies were urged to go in heavily for new construction. In come taxes were cut 1 % to spur economic recovery.

In spite of the President's best efforts, the conservative American Federation of Labor counted 3,700,000 workers out of jobs that first winter of the Depression.*

Late last October when business did not bulge as expected, President Hoover started to prepare for a second winter of Unemployment and distress. His relief formula : Each community must rely on local charity and help itself, with not a penny from the Federal Treasury. Though nothing was to come from Washington but advice, sympathy and cooperation, President Hoover held another round of conferences with such notables as Bernard Mannes Baruch, Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., Charles Hayden. A Cabinet committee was appointed "to formulate plans."

From New York City Col. Arthur Woods was summoned to take "a kind of coordinating job" as head of the President's Emergency Committee on Employment, to prod local relief agencies and issue cheery reports. The public buildings program was pressed harder. Announced the President: "As a nation we must prevent hunger and cold to our citizens who are in honest difficulties."

In a special January count the Census Bureau estimated that the unemployed of the nation had increased to 6,050,000 the second winter (1930-31) of the Depression.

This year President Hoover did not wait until late autumn before preparing for a hard winter. In June he inaugurated his moratorium plan as a world business stimulant. This he followed up by requesting all Community Chests, through their national organization, to survey joblessness, determine well in advance the "load of distress" they would have to meet. As before, he summoned Big Business to the White House for advice and comfort. Said he reassuringly: "The problem of Unemployment and Relief, whatever it may be, will be met." Before him loomed the A. F. of L.'s prediction for the third winter of the Depression: 7,000,000 jobless.

Last week President Hoover showed further how the problem would be met. He knew it was a third thundering challenge to his national leadership. His political life, he realized, largely depended on what he did this winter. Twice he had tried and failed to hold down Unemployment. His third attempt, he knew, will be judged at renomination time and sentenced or applauded at the subsequent election. Convinced that his relief formula of local self-help was sound, he set about enlarging its scope, enlisting Big Names to increase its prestige. No less than the rising tide of joblessness, he was combating a growing Congressional demand for direct Federal aid — for a Dole.