COPELAND ANALYZES ASPECTS OF HOOVER UNEMPLOYMENT PLAN

The following article was written for the Crimson by Professor M. T. Copeland of the Harvard Business School.

The main objective of the Hoover plan, I take it, is to provide for the alleviation of general unemployment, when it occurs, by increasing the expenditures of the federal and state governments on public works which are to be held in abeyance in anticipation of such contingencies. The immediate task is to arrange for the recording of the facts which will show when, where, and how much unemployment exists.

The purpose, I judge, is to deal with the problem of general unemployment, not with those local and sporadic instances of unemployment which result from such causes as changes in production methods or the geographical shifting of industries. Business booms, crises, and depressions are not entirely a thing of the past, and, unless we learn how to control business activities better than has been done heretofore, the problem of general unemployment will arise again acutely as it did in 1921, 1908, and other periods of business depression. Heretofore resort has been had to soup kitchens, special commissions and conferences, and much talk, which continued until the distress had been relieved by changes in economic conditions.

Mr. Hoover shows his vision by recognizing that it is prevention rather than cure of unemployment that is needed, and that definite plans, based on fact, must be laid far in advance for dealing with this problem. Obviously, if unemployment is to be dealt with constructively, it is necessary to have some measurement of its extent. At the present time, however, there are practically no dependable statistics collected in the United States on unemployment. In the winter of 1927, for example, extensive discussion took place in Congress and elsewhere regarding the current unemployment, but to this day no one knows even approximately how much unemployment existed at that time. Hence Mr. Hoover wisely has stressed the importance of providing for the regular monthly compilation of records of unemployment, and here in Massachusetts Representative Shattuck has introduced a bill into the legislature to authorize the collection of such data in this state. When that bill has been enacted into law and when the other state legislatures have taken similar action, the first major step in Mr. Hoover's program will have been taken.