Hard Times (New Style)

"We're going to carry everybody connected with the steel industry safely through."

If a great steelmaster, confronted with bad times, had made that statement 30 or even 15 years ago, his colleagues would have thought he had caught religion or become drunk. His employees would not have believed him. Yet when Charles Michael Schwab, board chairman of Bethlehem Steel Corp., said those words last week at a Manhattan meeting of the American Iron & Steel Institute, his auditors were not greatly startled. Though they knew "Charley" Schwab for the most unregenerate optimist in U. S. Industry, a notorious backslapper, hand shaker and well wisher, they also knew that what he said really did reflect the modern concept of business in dealing with critical economic upheavals and serious unemployment.

If Steelman Schwab was optimistic last week -- he predicted the early advent of "a larger measure of prosperity than the American people have ever known before" -- so was many another tycoon throughout the land. At the same meeting at which Mr. Schwab said, ''We're having beer now but when summer comes we're going to have champagne," James Augustine Farrell, trim and stocky little president of U. S. Steel, declared: "We have in our hands the power to restore the steel industry to prosperity in 60 days. . . . This is no time to pinch off a penny or two. . . . The depression is only temporary. ... I agree with Mr., Schwab the situation is a little better."

At the University of Chicago other tycoons got together at the seventh annual conference of major industries. Most of them were optimistic for the long-pull. George Matthew Verity, benevolent president of American Rolling Mill Co., declared: "The steel industry is like a great giant tied and pulling at its shackles. It is impatient to go. And go he will within a comparatively short time." "A successful and prosperous year in 1931" was predicted by Harvey Samuel Firestone Jr., polo-playing young vice president of Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.

John Jacob Raskob of General Motors announced: "Depressed conditions in the automobile industry have reached bottom. Sharp revival may be expected to begin with automobile shows in early January."

Will H. Hays, cinema tsar: "We are gathering momentum for an upward swing that will lead the world recovery. American prosperity will rearise, not pale and wan, from the sickbed of wasting remedies but strong and vigorous."

Hoover's 800,000. Hopeful as were these predictions of better times by U. S. tycoonery they did not help President Hoover solve the immediate problem of Unemployment. The President's estimates showed 3,500,000 persons out of work. Of these it was figured that a million were in transit from one job to another or voluntarily idle and that another 500,000 were in communities of less than 3,000 population where they would be cared for by friends or relatives. The remaining 2,000,000 jobless represented about 800,000 families. The President's view was that this was a serious but not a critical situation.

To relieve it directly there was little President Hoover could do. The Federal Government had no funds for charity; that must come locally. Federal public works were admittedly only a "drop in the bucket" of U. S. construction. For psychological purposes though, the White House kept them to the fore as an example to states & cities. Also the President continued to jack up Industry with requests to push its heavy construction, stagger its employment, maintain its wages.

Woods. As a definite, visible gesture, the President appointed a Director of Employment Relief. He called for Col. Arthur Woods of Manhattan, nephew-in-law of J. P. Morgan, a genteel and experienced emergency man.

Joblessness is nothing new to grey-haired, grey-eyed Col. Woods, now 60. A Harvard graduate (1892) who once taught at Groton, cubbed on the New York Sun, joined the New York police force as a crime expert, emerged as the city's police commissioner (1914-18) during a period of hard times, he was director of the Army air service's personnel bureau during the War, later serving as a special assistant to the Secretary of War to find jobs for home-coming soldiers. In 1921 he was made a member of President Harding's Conference on Unemployment headed by Secretary of Commerce Hoover. Married in 1916 to Miss Helen Morgan Hamilton, he is a director of Bankers' Trust Co. of New York, an ardent tennis player, an associate of John Davison Rockefeller Jr. in philanthropy.

The inevitable vagueness of Federal Unemployment relief is also nothing new to Col. Woods. Last week, pressed for a description, he could, only say: "It is a kind of coordinating job. . . . The best we can do is to let various places know what others are doing. . . ." But at the desk they cleared for him in the Department of Commerce, Col. Woods gave a lively imitation of Washington's Busiest Man. His telephone rang at the rate of once every two minutes. Government officials from the Postmaster General down to the Chairman of the Shipping Board called to offer assistance. He hired Edward L. Bernays, smart Manhattan pressagent, to publicize the Government's work. Into newsreel microphones he preached a gospel of "sprucing up the home" now instead of later. As an aid to public construction he cited $450,000,000 worth of state bond issues which voters can pass upon on Election Day.*

Volunteers v. Congress. When someone suggested calling Congress to deal with spirit of voluntary service has been strong unemployment, President Hoover replied: "No special session is necessary. . . . The spirit of voluntary service has been strong . . . will continue. . . . Colonel Woods is receiving most gratifying evidence of this."

Meanwhile, throughout the land:

New York. Governor Roosevelt moved to throw open the state armories to shelter the jobless. The War Department was asked to supply 16,000 cots and blankets, reduce the required drilling hours of militia units during the emergency.

In New York City, Mayor Walker formed a committee, asked 125,000 municipal employes to contribute 1% of their monthly salaries ($266,000) for physical relief. In a two-day canvass policemen listed 13,222 families in need of immediate aid. Estimates of the city's unemployed ran as high as 800,000. Into eight Salvation Army soup kitchens long lines of men and a few women shuffled for free clam chowder, crackers, coffee. City officials prepared to feed 15,000 mouths per day, shelter 10,000 heads, free throughout the winter.

From his modernistic desk in his modernistic new offices, President Carleton H. Palmer of E. R. Squibb & Son preached the five-day week to his fellow industrialists. His potent points: "If all industries adopted the five-day week, that would decrease production about 9% at a maximum. That means a maximum of 9% more workers would have to be employed . . . would take care of at least half of the millions unemployed today. . . .

"The half-day on Saturday is the most inefficient work period of the entire week. To start a plant in the morning requires half an hour, and to stop it requires another half hour. ... It doubles the ratio of time during which no production occurs, while all the expenses of power, light, heat and general overhead must be borne without corresponding production."

President Palmer practices his preachments. Squibb has been five-day-weeking for three months, its production is at 98% of theoretical capacity, its payroll is 5% bigger than before.

Pennsylvania. With retail prices at a 1913 low, Philadelphia shopkeepers inaugurated a four-weeks BUY NOW campaign to stimulate local trade. Governoi Fisher, impressed, urged the whole state to do likewise. Pittsburgh raised a $100,000 relief fund, started a $300,000 public construction program with hand labor.

New Jersey's Dwight Whitney Morrow declared: "This propaganda of hoarding money must cease."

Ohio. Within the fortnight Cleveland put 9,000 idle men to work. The city sent a representative to Detroit to study its advanced system of Unemployment relief (TIME, Oct. 27). Remembering their religious vow to "let no one go hungry while there is food," the Amish sect sent supplies from their farms into Cleveland.

Wisconsin. Milwaukee prepared to put 13,500 workless men to work on a three-day per week basis at 60 cents per hour. Cost: $200,000.

Inland Steel Co. of Wisconsin prepared to reopen its Milwaukee plant on a 24-hour basis.

Minnesota. To carry out a $1,000,000 public improvement program, Minneapolis decided to put picks & shovels in the hands of 10,000 men instead of using labor-saving machinery.

Illinois. An Unemployment relief fund of $100,000 per month-was arranged by Samuel Insull, public utilitarian, by collecting one day's pay per month from all the workers in his $3,000,000,000 industry. Said Tycoon Insull: "The responses will be practically universal. Girls and boys, men and women will all come in alike."

The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and Pennsylvania Railroads agreed to spend an extra $7,160,000 at once in Chicago on track elevation.

Yellow Cab Co. hired 1,200 new drivers.

To make more jobs the "big four" railway brotherhoods suggested that the roads shift employment from an eight to a six-hour basis but without any wage reductions. Declared Lawrence Aloysius Downs, president of Illinois Central: "This is a mighty poor time to ask any such thing. The roads have no money to pay additional salaries."

Michigan. Fisher Body Corp. accelerated production in ten plants from a three-day week to a five-and-half day week.

Detroit's municipal agency put 2,500 to work. Muskegon started a SPEND-A-MILLION-A-WEEK campaign to break a "buyer's strike." Lions club through out the land took up the idea, got the governors of nine states (Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Mexico, Ohio) to issue proclamations for a "Confidence-in-Business Week."

London. Insurance brokers reported they were doing an extraordinarily brisk business in policies on U. S. property protection against the risks of civil disturbances and Unemployment riots.

*Chief of these are: New Jersey $100,000,000; Louisiana $68,000,000; New York $50,000,000; California $20,000,000; Cleveland $31,500,000.

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