The Crossroads
Hedrick, Kenneth H.
Kenneth H. Hedrick The Crossroads • • It is so very seldom that the Honorable Hubert Horatio Humphrey is right that when he is, the occasion deserves notice. "We stand today at an historical...
...We stand today at an historical crossroad," he announced, referring to the decision that Congress will make with respect to the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1976...
...Even if the tracks of every railroad in America were re-laid, if all the cars were spotless and the trains ran on time, I postulate that these new, clean, smooth-riding cars would be just as empty as their predecessors...
...The bill would mandate as much spending as needed to reduce the unemployment rate to three percent in four years, and if implemented would result in a growth of the budget between $12 billion and $25 billion over that same period...
...For another, no rail system can possibly carry the majority of America's workers to the new industrial sites ringing America's growing urban areas, none of which are located in the old railroad network...
...The inner circumference was only 400 yards, and for four years I had to lay out lanes and relay passing zones of bewildering complexity to accommodate the various events run on that fouled-up stretch of cinders...
...It has the smell of bread lines and Woody Guthrie ballads to it, the progressive feds charging to the rescue of the unemployed, protecting the downtrodden, exorcising capitalism's evils...
...And what of the people this bill is to help...
...All public monies begin in the private sector and the flow of cash to the public zone would mean a diminution of capital needed for private industries to build new plants and provide real jobs that will last...
...The Alternative: An American Spectator June/ July 1976 19...
...They were told to lay out a track 440 yards in circumference and they did—on the outside...
...There are, alas, several problemswith this solution, as Senator Bayh found out...
...Could you not see it—burly unemployed construction workers, slight unemployed graduate students in pre-Columbian art, shoulder-to-shoulder with sledge hammers in hand, singing "I've been working on the railroad...
...conversely, to adopt it would be to force the nation onto a Procrustean bed of centralized planning, increased inflation, wage and price controls, labor strife, and the eventual nationalization of vital industries...
...Wages paid for the new jobs cannot be too high or they would attract people already employed...
...Other problems with public works programs would be matching skills with people...
...I may prefer to ride the creaky old Reading into Philadelphia but thousands more prefer to drive their own cars and are quite willing to endure the congestion and expense in order to retain control over their own lives...
...It would look like a scene from a Soviet film of the 1930s depicting the Ukrainian wheat harvests...
...A host of worthies, clerics, mayors, and union honchos (though not one trained economist), appeared before the Joint Economic Committee and in best bleeding-heart style begged for the bill's passage as the final solution for the poor and jobless...
...Let me close with a personal tale which may reveal our future in miniature...
...Who says the nation wants the railroads rebuilt...
...Strange, whenever I hear a politico promising to do great things for me, I think back on that wasteful, inefficient, and senseless arena of my youth, a personal metaphor for our overregulated society...
...However, this is merely part of the myth of the self-generated dollar from Washington...
...Capitalism has failed and cannot provide enough jobs for the people, therefore the government will fashion jobs out of the whole cloth of "public service" and "public works programs...
...Therefore, there would most likely come a time when men and women without work would be forced to accept jobs at a social cost which could not be measured in dollars...
...It sounds great, but what programs...
...One possible use for this new-harnessed labor is what is known on the campaign trail as "rebuilding America's railroads...
...Too low, and few would give up the womb of welfare and unemployment compensation for work...
...At the high school where I misspent my youth in Pennsylvania, the track surrounding our football field was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA...
...Thus would be raised the specter of involuntary servitude in the name of national recovery...
...To reject the bill and bury it forever would be an act of consummate statesmanship and wisdom...
...Whenever the words "public works programs" are mentioned, whatever do they mean...
...The bill, popularly known as Humphrey-Hawkins, is vintage New Deal...
...Would white-collar workers have to get their hands dirty or would we have make-work accounting classes and subsidized chamber groups for unemployed cellists...
...When I said that HHH was right, I meant that the adoption or rejection of this bill will indeed prove to be an event of great import...
...I cannot believe that acceptance of work would be voluntary...
...For one thing, the commuter train is primarily a northeastern and midwestern phenomenon...
...Finally, even if the problems were eliminated, the ICC and the rail unions would find some reason to screw things up again...
...Such conundrums alone would sink any reasonable man's desire for such a program without contemplating its cost...
...To continue with this example, how 18 The Alternative: An American Spectator June/ July 1976 would the jobless be handled to perform the above-mentioned worthy task...
...Proponents of the bill dismiss this objection by pointing out that the money would be regained by not having to pay out unemployment and welfare claims...
...Would thousands of the unemployed of all skills or no skills be assembled at dawn in Times Square and transported to the wilds of Westchester County to do pick and shovel work on the Penn Central...
...Surely not dams, or highways, for what true-blue environmentalist would stand for another foot of concrete being poured upon the pristine wilderness...
...The labor squads could carry bright banners with catchy slogans exhorting the men to Stakhanovite levels of production and pictures of their patron saint, Hubert of Minnesota, in pre-election pout...
...The premise of the bill is deceptively noble...
Vol. 9 • June 1976 • No. 9
