Judge — September 1932 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Judge Faith Without Works OWEVER stocks may boom and campaign orators bray, it still looks like 00,000 un- employed this 3 $ ures so far ched the sur- ration seems to believe that you can apply politics as you do paint—‘save the surface and save all.” The most ironic chapter in the vhole story of the depre: been th lure to abide by the t tional faith in the public works pro- gram. We have indeed had faith without works. Y ago, Mr. Hoover and his economic committees were arguing that government con- struction could and should be used to level off the peaks and va the business le. In bad time row and build; in good times, go slow and don't compete with private con- struction for money, men and ma- terials. So ran the theory. What happened? st year the amount of public wor! construction in this country was half a billion dollars less than in any of the four preceding years. This year the decrease has been even more drastic. The Amer- ican Society of Civil Engineers, after a national survey nnounce that since January 1 nearly 2,000,000 per- sons have lost employment because of the stoppage of public works. And to the fami argument that construction can not be started quickly enough to do much good, the society replies that state and munici- pal works alone aggregating $1,400,- 000,000 are ready to start, and almost another billion dollars worth could be begun in short order. Yet the administration fought un BENCH every step of the way lic works program, Finally, under pressure from the engineers, th« economists and Al Smith, the W ner bill was passed. It provides $1,800,000,000 to be loaned to States, municipalities and counties for “self- projects.” A’ grudging and so restricted that it rded as only a means setting the rugged individu. $ used to the idea, paving the way for the real legi that must be driven through in the next session of Congres t a pub- What we've sot to come to is a pub- lic works program calling for an in- vestment of five billion dollars or mo! conceived in the long-range view as a permanent feature of na- tional policy, and not with any short- sighted notion of getting the cash back quick by spending it all on toll- bridge: As for the $300,000,000 that has been so far appropriated for direct relief of the unemployed through the several states, that’s just a cruel joke. In December Cong will have to wipe the grin off its face and try to figure out how 12,000,000 American families are going to be kept alive on twenty-five dollars per family. Mugwumpery I ‘ this campaign Jupc porting any candidate. we had our fill of Organ. The fingers of partisan vir- tuosi chipped our keyboard, pulled our stops askew and bust our bel- lows. All we sot out of it was a wheeze—and not a very srood one at that. We see no good reason why a jour- nal as such should have a platform is not sup- Years ago being a Party and a candidate. Journals are made groups of men and women, and in > groups all shades of political opinion are likely to be represented Here at JUDGE we have a decent re- spect for one another's opinions, and we don’t want anybody jumping out of the window because the good old paper is compromising him. Therefore we shall follow the plan we used four 5 s ago. JUDGE itself will take no position, but some time before the election this page will state the position of each of the indi- viduals principally concerned in the management of the paper. Meanwhile, however, we can unite on this bit of advice to readers: Keep your minds open and give the candi- dates a chance. If everybody in the country had already decided how he was going to vote, what would be the sense of having campaign? The aim of politicians is to win over the independents. True, the means they use are not very edifying. At present all parties are showing their usual skill in bam- boozling the voters. Mr. Hoover has made a highly successful straddle on prohibition. Mr. Roosevelt has 'em guessing as to just how radical he really 1s. Even Norman Thomas is trying to keep step with half a dozen different squads of socialists. The country a whole profits from 2 campaign in proportion to the number of independent voters and the length of time they reserve their decision. For thus they wrest from prospective office-holders added pledges of policy and action, some of which may in good time be per- formed, to the public benefit. Such is the thecry of mugwum- pery, which we commend to you. R.JLW. comicbooks.com