The Raskob Plan
9 ~ THE COMMONWEAL May 29 , 1929 surely inspired by the cold blue memory of just such a spring as this: "The winds . .. have sucked up from the sea contagious fogs"; "The nine men's morris is...
...his argument being opposed by Mr...
...They will derive from such property a larger return than from a savings bank deposit...
...Moreover, it deals only with those incomes that are derived from partici- pation in the process of production...
...Island competition might not hurt the big domestic producers, but it would certainly be disas- trous to the smaller mills which are, after all, the ones really in need of help...
...It is the ethical connota- tion of the plan which at present demands our interest...
...It is true, of course, that Wisconsin has already advanced one step in the proper direction...
...It needs no commentary...
...Its province is not the distribution of all the goods of the country among all the people of the country, but only the distribution of the products of industry among the classes that have taken part in making these products...
...The gigantic amounts of money dis- pensed for such purposes in the United States form one of the wonders of the age...
...Raskob hopes that the discussion and criticism caused by the unplanned publicity will be useful in testing the popular appeal and the economic merits and demerits of the proposal...
...The plan is expected to attract and assist multitudes who rarely get so far as the savings bank on their difficult path through life...
...So Mr...
...They will partici- pate in the increase of the value of the stocks bought and administered by the securities trust...
...It deals with the morality of such possessions only indirectly and under one aspect: that is, in so far as they have been acquired through income...
...Just how widespread is the practice of employing children in the beet fields may be realized from a glance at the results of recent investigations, notably those reported by the Department of Labor, and at some correspondence on the subject in the Survey...
...The totally avaricious and selfish rich man--or the one who, though well aware of the truth, made vivid in the homely old saying that "shrouds have no pockets," nevertheless leaves all that he has amassed to his own family alone--is no longer the typical rich man...
...It is not, then, a question of preserving the market for our domestic producers...
...The Raskob plan is directly intended to open for such as these a fair and adequate way to acquire personal property and to share in the progress of national prosperity...
...These and many similar events are being taken by the press as proofs that the possessors of wealth are more and more realizing the tremendous responsibility of stewardship that rests upon them...
...Says Dr...
...To conditions in Colorado and Michigan, where chil...
...A law which has been in effect these past four years declares: "Children under fourteen years of age must not be permitted to work in sugar-beet fields more than eight hours in any day, nor more than forty-eight hours in any week, nor before 7 a. m., nor after 7 P. m. "Children under fourteen years of age who have not finished the eighth grade in school must not be permitted to work in sugar-beet fields during school hours when the school in the district in which they are living is in session...
...A quotation from Dr...
...Senator James Couzens has just put aside $Io,ooo,ooo for the benefit of the children of his home state, Michigan...
...The other important aspect of his resolution is sociological...
...First of all, it raises the question as to whether the proposed three-cent rate on sugar may properly be considered a protective tariff...
...Thus the indus- try would be aided, and substantial economies effected...
...Ryan: "Distributive justice is primarily a problem of in- comes rather than of possessions...
...The Raskob plan, put in its briefest terms, calls for the formation of a great securities investment trust or corporation, which will not only sell for investment purposes small lots of sound stocks to the millions of people who ordinarily cannot hope to acquire ownership of such equities--now the fundamental values of our form of society---but which will also lend them part of the money to do so...
...It is a condition that has existed pretty generally among a perhaps larger minority of wealthy people than is generally sup- posed...
...Somewhat prematurely--as it now appears--the newspapers, learning of Mr...
...THE RASKOB PLAN M EN of great wealth, and men whose highly developed intellects and extraordinary energies have been devoted to the service of wealth-producing organizations, have of late been turning their atten- tion toward certain fundamental social problems con- nected with the present era of enormous industrial expansion...
...with the provision that both capital and income are to be spent within twenty-five years, so that the children of this generation may derive the full benefit of his gift, and also for the more important reason that he believes each generation should be left as free as possible to deal with its own problems without being handicapped by methods inherited from the past...
...The Commonweal, how- ever, is content to leave this and other features of the Raskob experiment to the scrutiny and judgment of economists and statesmen, which inevitably will be brought to bear upon them...
...Raskob's conversations with other big business men, came out with the announcement of this new experiment in distributive justice...
...Frear proposes to keep the tariff at its present level, which will save consumers about $240,000,000, according to his esti- mates, and to pay the domestic mills a bounty of $.02 for each pound of sugar they produce, which would cost the treasury about $35,000,000...
...As laborers and as clerks they have contributedmand they will continue, with greater incentive, to contribute--to the creation of the wealth of the country, but now they will have a share also in the increasing fruits thereof...
...John A. Ryan's classic work on Distributive Justice will make clear the sense in which the Raskob plan seems to The Commonweal to be an experiment in the equitable distribution of property...
...There is a clause which reserves the bounty payments to companies prohibiting child labor...
...It happens that 85 percent of the sugar con-sumed here is imported, and no matter how high the tariff might be set, we should continue to import...
...That this class is for the most part at present shut out from sharing in the distribution of the products of industry over and above its wages or salaries, also seems clear...
...Extraordinary interest is, therefore, attached to the announcement that Mr...
...C. Harold Smith, is offering a prize of $I,OOO to the person who will tell him how he may spend $IO,OOO,OOO in a way to do the most public good...
...Perhaps, then, these thirty- one days of acute discomfort have been worth it, if they have thus brought us, a race nourished on per- petual sunlight, to even this brief understanding of what that great immortal smilingly endured...
...These are the millions who, no matter how general business prosperity may be at any particular time, always live at or near the line of stark poverty, and who promptly drop down into the depths of desti- tution, temporarily or permanently, during hard times, or perhaps when some particular form of industry, like the cotton mills, or agriculture, fails to keep step with the others...
...One must suffer, it is certain, not only to be beautiful but also to hold com- munion with the great...
...That the wage-earner, whether a rough laborer or a humble clerk, forms part of a great class absolutely indispensable to production, cannot be doubted...
...Incidentally, it is claimed for the plan that it would protect as no other plan could the small investor against stock swindlers, who annually defraud him out of many millions of dollars...
...But no more such MaysI May quothal May indeedl THREE-CENT SUGAR I N TWO respects the resolution introduced by Mr...
...Obviously this is so...
...Frear has made frequent and effective reference...
...But it is at least strange that in all his remarks, which fill many pages of the Record, he has not seen fit to add to his case with citations from his own state...
...dren as young as six are frequently seen working in the fields, Mr...
...Paul D. Cravath, eminent corpora- tion lawyer, intimately associated with many of the greatest exemplars of big business, presenting a strong argument to prove that big business itself is a menace...
...There are and always will be churches and universities and schools and hospitals and scientific and artistic and musical and literary activities to be built up or assisted or endowed...
...Frear that this will stimulate island production, especially when we remem- ber that under the somewhat less favorable markets of the past six years, free sugar imports from the Philippines have increased about 14o percent, and those from Hawaii and Porto Rico from 75 to 80 percent...
...Edward A. Filene, who sees in big business the most practical and benefi- cial way out of our most serious social problems...
...9 ~ THE COMMONWEAL May 29 , 1929 surely inspired by the cold blue memory of just such a spring as this: "The winds . .. have sucked up from the sea contagious fogs...
...Nor is it something entirely new...
...Generally speaking, however, even while the modMay 29 , I929 THE COMMONWEAL 91 ern rich man has either sincerely recognized the truth that he is the steward rather than the absolute owner of his possessions or has been led to adopt that truth by the example of others--he has but rarely shown the same forceful, creative spirit in dealing with the problem of the just distribution of a share of the great wealth which has come to him at least partly through the co6peration and the labor of others, as he mani- fested in building up his fortune...
...Frear of Wisconsin calling for a bounty on sugar produced within the United States, is worthy of more consideration than it is likely to receive, either from Congress or from the press...
...Higher tariff on dutiable sugar means a greater profit for the island producers, and it is not difficult to agree with Mr...
...It is not immedi- ately concerned with John Brown's railway stock, John White's house, or John Smith's automobile...
...Further, approximately 33 percent of our imported sugar comes from our island possessions duty free...
...But it has been far from common for the possessor of great wealth to apply himself to the solution of the problems under- lying those that are dealt with through the usual forms of philanthropy...
...The nine men's morris is filled up with mud...
...Generally there were easier ways out of the problem for him...
...In one Sunday newspaper we have the spectacle of Mr...
...Premature as the announcements were, how- ever, they seem to have given the essential idea of the Raskob plan correctly, and Mr...
...For example, it considers the laborer's wages, but not the subsidies he may receive through charity or friendship...
...In another newspaper a multimillionaire, Mr...
...and more especially, "The moon . . . pale in her anger, washes all the air, that rheumatic diseases do abound...
...If he was a churchman, he could and did contribute largely to the charitable activities of his particular form of faith, or to purely social philanthropies...
...Believing as we do in the principle of private property as being indispensable to any normal and stable society, and holding also that the preservation of private prop- erty for comparatively few members of society, and a fluctuating status of mere wage-earning or poverty for the many, is a denial of that principle, it seems to us that the Raskob plan may well turn out to be the most beneficially important social experiment so far launched by any American becoming sensible of the stewardship of great wealth...
...John J. Raskob, "the financial wizard," as the newspapers have so widely proclaimed him to be, intends to launch a new sort of business enterprise which has in it more than the mere possi-bility of becoming another social movement for the distribution of property values among millions of workers--common laborers, and the lower-paid classes of the so-called "white collar" army of office em- ployees...
Vol. 10 • May 1929 • No. 4
