Gold

In an interview in today's CRIMSON Mr. Randolph Walker of New York expounds his plan for reemployment, the so-called "Grub Stake Plan." His ideas would be worth considering if only because they advance a new solution of the problems which the depression has forced upon everyone; but further than this, they are interesting because they touch a subject which is at the bottom of every heart, because they involve the word, gold.

This fundamental meaning attached to gold, of course, has its repercussions in many and varied phases of existence; the precious metal is as important to the jeweler as to the economist. For this reason, everyone knows a little about it; and because it is so important to everyone, its recovery is work for willing hands always. It is much more sensible to set a ruined rag merchant to planning gold than to put a sapling in his hands with orders to plant it. And though earnings may be low for the place miner, he is doing something which does not seem to him unmitigated drudgery, and which keeps him alive in the hope of a rich strike. The plan considers and allows for the human element.

Mr. Walker points out clearly the advantages which will accrue to the government from the plan, and which constitute another of its individual features. Seldom before has a plan to aid the down and out been at the same time of benefit to the government, as this so surely is. Considered thus from both sides, the plan is a feasible one. The inevitable difficulties which will arise in management if action is taken are at the mercy of the government's staff of specialists and experts of various sorts. Intelligent precautions taken by them, and the necessary quick action from all departments should see a horde of the unemployed on their way to the hills when the approaching snow has melted.