Mr. Hoover and National Welfare
Ryan, John A.
MR. HOOVER AND NATIONAL WELFARE By JOHN A. RYAN. THE plan of farm relief enacted at the behest of the President bears striking testimony to his limitations as an economist. That part of the...
...President Hoover has not shown himself to be a master of fundamental principles...
...The principle becomes overlaid at once with practice...
...Legge, declares that "stabilization cannot be made to work for continuous, cumulative and permanent surpluses...
...He committed himself to the false and tyrannical principle that the state can do no wrong...
...Last year it bought 70,000,000 bushels of wheat at a figure considerably above the market price...
...Whether the government could fulfil this condition in the generation of electric power or in the operation of boats on our rivers, or in any other field, is a question of fact and experience...
...It has done so for the most part in its construction of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the constitution...
...He asserted that the surest way to get a bad law repealed was through rigorous enforcement...
...Apparently Mr...
...The statesman should have a clear grasp of the former kind of principles and a considerable facility in deriving the latter from experience...
...The solemn pronouncement cited above exemplifies usurpation, sheer abuse of power and position...
...The stabilization provided for in the law might, indeed, take care of seasonal crop surpluses, but it is utterly incapable of dealing with surpluses which recur year after year...
...President Hoover not only gave it his official approval but apologized for it in a statement that abounded in half-truths and misleading statistics...
...The Federal Farm Board, or any other agency with the requisite amount of money, could take sufficient wheat off the market in September and October to maintain the price at $1.25, and then it could sell its holdings without loss the following spring...
...On the other hand, if he thought that the surplus was temporary he lacked elementary knowledge of a practical economic situation...
...I shall mention only two...
...240...
...There is no doubt that he was dissatisfied with the kind of tariff measure that he knew was taking shape long before it was finally adopted by Congress...
...For upwards of fifteen years a majority of the Supreme Court has consistently upheld property rights at the expense of human rights...
...But this obligation refers to civil law in general, not to every statute that proceeds from every legislature...
...The same thing is possible when the surplus arises from an exceptionally good yield which is followed the next year by an exceptionally poor year...
...Mr...
...Hence it has wisely refused to go further along this way of disaster, rejecting the purely political suggestion of Senator Capper that it add 100,000,000 bushels to its present unprofitable store...
...Hoover could not have been thinking of legal duty...
...Hoover has never provided a respectable amount of factual support for his a priori generalization...
...Hoover thinks that he is enunciating a demonstrated political principle when he declares that the government should enter business only "as the byproduct to some great major purpose, such as improvement in navigation, flood control, irrigation, scientific research and national defense...
...Nevertheless, Mr...
...Hughes would align himself with the conservative majority in the interpretation of the "due process" clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, his opponents in the Senate made the issue and the situation abundantly clear...
...In his inaugural address the President laid upon "honest men and women" the "duty" of discouraging violations of the prohibition laws...
...In neither of these fields has Mr...
...Hoover's deficiencies and decline have caused little surprise to discriminating Americans...
...Hoover's method seems to be that his application of principles is too "instant," too hasty...
...Hoover sent to the Senate the name of Justice Parker, whose decision in the Red Jacket case manifested complete agreement with those members of the Supreme Court who have produced the unjust decisions in the Coppage and Hitchman cases...
...Illustrations of this defective method are seen in his treatment of unemployment, farm relief and the tariff...
...Happily for Mr...
...In all probability it is false...
...Now, the great defect in Mr...
...Now, the decisions rendered by the court in the application of the "due process" causes to economic conditions are determined mainly by the social, economic and ethical views of the individual justices...
...Legge, the huge cost of his enlightenment will be borne by the Treasury of the United States...
...Continued effort to enforce a law which imposes upon the people unreasonable burdens is a species of tyranny...
...that in his hands the principle becomes not only "overlaid" but obscured and forgotten...
...As conspicuous examples, I would cite the decisions in the Coppage case, the Hitchman case and the District of Columbia minimum-wage case...
...Now, the business of interpreting the moral law for the benefit of the people is not mentioned among the functions or prerogatives of the President described in the constitution...
...Therefore an intelligent lover of justice who is charged with the tremendous responsibility of nominating members of the Court should welcome the opportunity of selecting jurists who place reasonable opportunity for the masses above excessive solicitude for the interests of property...
...Its correctness cannot be assumed merely because it has become a familiar slogan...
...The President was either unable to grasp or was indifferent to a great principle of human rights...
...Such are the policies involved in legislation to meet the problems of unemployment, the agricultural depression and tariff revision...
...Thus it would have stabilized the price at about $1.25 for the entire year...
...A Roosevelt or a Wilson would not have hesitated to speak out...
...The present paper is devoted to a consideration of what has been done with certain important national issues, notably farm relief, prohibition and law enforcement...
...That they were right in this judgment is not seriously doubted by any intelligent person who is at once adequately acquainted with the bill and mindful of the welfare of the American people...
...Some of the principles that underlie right political action are intuitive, as that all men are endowed with natural rights...
...Legge did not see this great light a year ago...
...A few months later the very small amount offered for sale may send the price up to $1.50 per bushel...
...Now, millions of Americans put the prohibition laws in one or more of these categories...
...Even in those cases where enforcement had been consistently carried on for a long time the laws were generally repealed only after a subsequent period of lax enforcement and general violation...
...One of these he vetoed, the other he signed...
...No intelligent man who followed the discussions could doubt the enormous power possessed by the Court to promote or to hinder economic justice...
...Neither a great engineer nor a great administrator, nor one who possesses the qualities of both, will necessarily make a great President," is the conclusion...
...Neither a great engineer nor a great administrator, nor one who possesses the qualities of both, will necessarily make a great President...
...too bad that his vision had to be sharpened through the expensive method of experience...
...The bill which the President signed makes a smaller raid on the treasury for the present, but it renders more easy a larger levy in the future...
...Suppose that year after year the supply is so great as to keep the average price down to one dollar...
...that part which aims at stabilization of prices rests upon a palpable economic fallacy...
...In this great province Mr...
...Moreover, a large proportion of unpopular laws have neither been consistently enforced nor formally repealed...
...Very few obnoxious laws have been repealed as the direct and immediate result of strict enforcement, or even of ensuing popular resentment...
...Its ill-considered scheme of stabilization is now denounced by both friend and foe as a complete failure...
...Indeed, the chairman of the Board, Mr...
...It seems probable that this will be the fate of the prohibition legislation...
...This is an assertion of fact, a supposed induction from political experience...
...If he was, he should have seen that the failure of this stabilization scheme was as certain as an axiom in geometry...
...As was indicated previously, The Commonweal hopes to publish a paper discussing the work of Mr...
...The true principle is that government should not undertake any economic activity unless by so doing it can serve the public better than private enterprise...
...Had he desired to exemplify the qualities of courageous and effective leadership, he would have exposed and denounced the bill months before it was passed, thereby arousing public opinion against it and rendering impossible the inclusion of some of its worst provisions...
...As a final example of his economic limitations I would cite his statement when he signed the SmootHawley tariff bill...
...Moreover, it was inexact and incorrect...
...The technical equipment of the engineer is at best irrelevant, while administrative competency has value for only one part of the presidential office...
...Exactly this has been the experience of the Federal Farm Board...
...Even if he had previously been unaware of the issue, he should have learned all about it when he encountered senatorial opposition to the nomination of Charles Evans Hughes...
...Of his lack of courageous and effective leadership many illustrations might be given...
...Was not Mr...
...Hoover remained silent...
...Hoover from a different point of view.—The Editors...
...What the Schoolmen called "legal justice" does, indeed, bind the citizen not only to obey the civil law himself but to promote, so far as he can without undue inconvenience, its observance by his fellow-citizens...
...Who's Hoover, the campaign biography written by William Hard, includes these sentences: "His mind turns every theoretical principle into an instant application...
...More than one thousand economists in our leading colleges and universities had condemned the bill as the worst measure of its kind ever framed in the United States...
...They have "fallen into desuetude," become inoperative through universal dislike and disobedience...
...So much for the assumption that he is a great economist...
...Fearing that Mr...
...The McNary-Haugen bill would have taken the surplus off the market permanently, selling it abroad at whatever price it would fetch, and recouping the loss through the equalization fee collected from the farmers themselves...
...A stabilization agency might purchase sufficient wheat in the fall or any other time of the year to force the price up to $1.25 per bushel for the time being, but it would be compelled eventually to sell its purchases at a loss, owing to the excessive continuous supply...
...Hence he opposes government operation of the power plant at Muscle Shoals and of barges on our navigable rivers...
...Of course, there is no such principle...
...Last week Father Ryan discussed the manner in which the President has sought to deal with problems arising out of the business depression...
...We will assume, however, that the quantity marketed during September and October is so great as to bring the price down to one dollar...
...Hoover had no previous experience, and his campaign speeches showed that he had given this class of subjects no deep study...
...The obligation does not extend to laws that are unjust, ineffective or unreasonably burdensome...
...Suppose, however, that the surplus is not seasonal nor confined to a single year...
...It has thereby increased considerably the power of the economically strong to oppress the economically weak...
...In these circumstances the great courage attributed by partisan journals to Mr...
...It represents a disregard of fundamental principles...
...It becomes a silent assumption" (p...
...In that case he must have adopted it as a temporary expedient, in the hope that somehow something would turn up to prevent the exposure of its insufficiency...
...Let us assume that $1.25 per bushel is a profitable price for wheat and that the supply is small enough to command this price throughout the year provided that it is brought into the market at a fairly uniform rate...
...A few weeks ago it sold one-seventh of its holdings at a loss of more than thirty cents per bushel...
...He must have meant moral duty...
...Unlike the Hoover law, it did not fatuously assume that the purchased surplus could be thrown upon the domestic market later without depressing the price and causing a grave loss to the United States Treasury...
...Hoover's veto of the first bill seems to be somewhat doubtful...
...While this plan probably would have broken down within two or three years, it had at least the merit of dealing with the problem squarely, honestly and realistically...
...Others are inductive, are generalizations from experience, as that governments cannot wisely undertake to provide for all human wants...
...Examples : the blue laws of our older commonwealths...
...His nomination of Justice Parker shows that he either did not know or deliberately ignored a fundamental principle in the realm of judicial law-making...
...Like the Farm Board Act, it authorized purchasing the surplus at a profitable price to the farmers...
...That part of the Federal Farm Act which seeks to promote cooperative marketing is altogether excellent in purpose...
...Its loss on the remaining 60,000,000 bushels will probably be at least as great...
...Such price variations as these can be prevented through stabilization...
...In this same address the President showed his misconception of an important empirical principle...
...The Farm Board Act either misconceived the problem or made it the subject of futile and costly experimentation...
...Hoover exhibited a high degree of insight or skill...
...Other and perhaps more conspicuous illustrations emerge from some of his remarks on prohibition in his inaugural address, from his opposition to government operation of industry, and from his nomination of Justice Parker to a seat on the Supreme Bench...
...Let us consider briefly these three instances...
...It is too bad that Mr...
...Hoover aware that the surpluses in several of our agricultural staples are continuous...
...Hoover's belief in repeal through rigid enforcement, there is the question of the justice of this procedure...
...Since neither the Eighteenth Amendment nor the Volstead Act enjoins any such obligation upon the citizen, Mr...
...Yet the latter will prove the less defensible of the two in the long run, for it is susceptible of much wider extension...
...As a consequence his practical decisions are not infrequently erroneous and socially injurious...
...Hoover seems to have assumed that they are morally binding simply because they are legislative enactments...
...Apart from the question of fact underlying Mr...
...The other example is provided by his attitude toward the veterans' pension bills...
...The McNary-Haugen bill proposed to meet the situation in a different way...
...More important than his administrative or executive tasks is the President's function of conceiving, recommending, fighting for and approving great legislative policies—policies that profoundly affect public welfare or the welfare of important classes...
...He attempts to fit a principle to practical issues before he has taken the trouble to understand the principle...
Vol. 12 • September 1930 • No. 19
