deficit spending, but, in fact, would help pay off the debt of $265,000,000,000?

Mr. MARSTON. I don't see how we can pay the debt unless our people are employed.

Mr. LATHAM. Do you feel the passage of this bill will help pay off the debt of $265,000,000,000, as stated by Mr. Patman, and would not result in deficit spending?

Mr. MARSTON. I am not an expert in this area, Mr. Congressman. I think there is a possibility of operating the program of keeping people employed, and serving the general welfare

Mr. LATHAM. Of course, but that was not my question. My question was, Do you think that this will result in a continuation of deficit spending?

Mr. MARSTON. I don't think it would necessarily do so.

Mr. LATHAM. Well, suppose we had a period of unemploymentand that is what this bill is supposed to be aimed at-and suppose, after we did all of the things which are supposed to be done to create jobs under this bill, stimulate private industry, and so on; then let us assume we had 5,000,000 people unemployed. The program is not to give relief or a dole, but give real working jobs; is that right? Mr. MARSTON. Yes, sir.

Mr. LATHAM. Then you would have to pay a man a fair wage for that Federal public work. What would you say would be a fair wage, about $2,000 a year?

Mr. MARSTON. Wouldn't that be determined by the labor market at that time?

Mr. LATHAM. Yes; but let us take an average figure. Two thousand dollars certainly wouldn't be too much for a real job?

Mr. MARSTON. I certainly wouldn't think so. Although it is a great deal more than teachers are getting on the average.

Mr. LATHAM. All right; let us assume we have 5 million unemployed; 5 million times $2,000 would make $10,000,000,000. Where would we get that $10,000,000,000?

Mr. MARSTON. That is a question we would face when it arises. We don't project the tax program 20 years from now upon some kind of a plan we set up today, do we?

Mr. LATHAM. Where would you suggest we get it?

Mr. MARSTON. We would necessarily get it from local, State, and Federal Governments wouldn't we?

Mr. LATHAM. Taxes?

Mr. MARSTON. I should think so.

Mr. LATHAM. Wouldn't an increase in taxation be a detriment to employment? Wouldn't heavier taxes discourage risk capital, if we are going to stick to the free enterprise system?

Mr. MARSTON. In point of deficit spending, under a broad program of this kind, we might have 5 years when there would be no deficit spending, when there would be no budget at all.

Mr. LATHAM. That is not what I mean.

Mr. MARSTON. Then in another vear, where the problem was so huge, we would necessarily have deficit spending. I am thinking in terms of a broad sweep of a decade or two decades. I think over a period of time there wouldn't be any deficit spending.

Mr. LATHAM. But this bill is aimed at a period of depression, when you have unemployment. If you had $10,000,000,000 added to that

year's budget you would have to raise it from somewhere, wouldn't you? You would have to raise it from taxes, and an increase in the tax rate would certainly be discouraging to risk capital to step out and create new jobs, would it not?

Mr. MARSTON. There wouldn't be as much of it for that purpose, certainly.

Mr. LATHAM. Wouldn't that further increase the unemployment and put more people on the public pay roll? Wouldn't that be just like a snowball rolling downhill, with more and more people going on the public pay roll and fewer and fewer people being employed by private enterprise?

Mr. MARSTON. Of course, that is what we face anyway when it comes on. Whatever the condition is, we have to meet it.

Mr. LATHAM. I don't concede that is so.

Mr. MARSTON. You don't think so?

Mr. LATHAM. No.

Mr. ERVIN. I would like to ask you a question, doctor. This is my first year here, and I haven't had much experience in studying a great many important problems, but there is one problem to which you may have devoted right much attention and I would like to have your answer to it. I have heard many proposals in recent years for the expenditure of money, and I would like to hear suggestions from someone about how to pay off the public debt, if you care to make a suggestion along that line.

Mr. MARSTON. Mr. Congressman, we can't pay it off if the people are not employed.

Mr. ERVIN. You are telling me how it can't be done; I am asking you how it can be done.

Mr. MARSTON. Isn't this one of the reconversion proposals before Congress that has for its purpose the development of an economic plan that will, so far as possible, safeguard the payment of the public debt?

Mr. ERVIN. I am not the witness. If I were, I think I could give some mighty good testimony, but I am asking you now. Do you have any plan for paying off the public debt?

Mr. MARSTON. In the area of education, the best contribution we can make is better educational opportunities for children.

Mr. ERVIN. I am in favor of that, but that question is not involved right now.

Mr. MARSTON. And in my field, to which I am trying to limit my discussion, that is the answer on which I would like to stand.

Mr. ERVIN. Well, your idea, then, is to educate the people.

Mr. MARSTON. That is the contribution that the National Education Association would make to this.

Mr. ERVIN. You think that is the best way?

Mr. MARSTON. I think that is one of the best ways.

Mr. ERVIN. I agree with you, and I think a lot of folks need education. But I don't think that has anything to do with this bill, do you?

Mr. MARSTON. I think so, yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Marston, we thank you very much.

Mr. MARSTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen.

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness is Mr. Joseph P. Anderson, executive secretary of the American Association of Social Workers. Mr. Anderson, do you have a prepared statement?

Mr. ANDERSON. Yes; I am sorry I don't have copies for the members of the committee. I would like to read from that.

I would like to say that I am glad to have this opportunity to come and meet with this committee. I represent an association of workers in our social agencies, the professional social workers. We have about 10,500 members in all sections of the country, organized in local chapters, and I am the executive secretary. We maintain a national office at 130 East Twenty-second Street, New York City.

I am glad to have a chance to come and meet with you, because we think we know a little bit about what the effects of depression are on employment. I don't want to take too much time to dwell on that, because I am sure you know it, too. But it is because we know what it does to people that we think something ought to be done, and we think that this legislation, the measure which was introduced in the House, and the measure which has been introduced in the Senate, points the way to some things that can be done.

With your permission I would like to read from this statement, which first indicates the official position that we have taken. It makes some general observations on the importance of employment, some reasons why we think this specific legislation will help, based on that philosophy, and then, finally, some specific proposals which will have to follow this legislation, because this legislation, as we understand it, will not result in full employment.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you don't think that this legislation in itself will give a job to anyone, do you?

Mr. ANDERSON. No.

The CHAIRMAN. Except to some additional Government employees making studies and gathering statistics.

Mr. ANDERSON. That is right, and it will give some work to the Congressmen who are going to serve on the committee set-up.

The CHAIRMAN. They already have work.

Mr. RICH. You have read this bill and studied it?

Mr. ANDERSON. Yes, sir; I have read it. I have read the Senate bill, and now the present H. R. 2202.

The CHAIRMAN. But you agree the bill will not give any additional jobs to unemployed people?

Mr. ANDERSON. I can't see that the provisions of this bill will result in a specific program of employment for people; no. I can't see that. Mr. JUDD. Do you think it commits the Congress to legislation which will make such specific provision?

Mr. ANDERSON. I do.

The CHAIRMAN. You realize that one Congress cannot commit another Congress, don't you?

Mr. ANDERSON. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Any legislation that we may pass today, committing us, can be undone by the next Congress.

Mr. ANDERSON. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. So, after all, we are going up hill and down with this bill, if it doesn't provide any employment for the people.

Mr. ANDERSON. I don't think that is quite true. Let me, if I may, say these things, and then I will be very glad to answer any questions. Work under wholesome conditions and at wages sufficient to assure maintenance for the worker and his normal dependents should be available to all. Federal Government has the responsibility for the

initiation of such social and economic planning as may be needed to assure for the United States the highest possible level of employ

ment.

To the degree that private industry cannot provide such opportunities, Government should provide them.

Work under public auspices should be provided to employ as many persons as can be absorbed in socially useful projects which utilize the skills and abilities of unemployed persons. Such employment should be available to an unemployed person for such periods of time as appropriate work in private enterprise is unavailable to him. Wholesome conditions and protections should be assured for workers on public projects. Payment for work done on public projects should be the union of scale of wages, where such scales have been developed, and should not fall below the minimum standards set by law for the protection of private employment.

Tests of individual needs other than evidence of lack of other employment opportunities are inconsistent with the concept of work outlined above. A work program should be distinct and separate from a program for relief.

A work program is not in itself a training program and should be distinguished from necessary efforts in this direction. Therefore, public projects for young persons and those occupationally displaced should be primarily directed to promote training or retraining in suitable occupations.

It is at last recognized that world security and peace depend on full use of all resources of manpower and productive capacity. Whether the goal is stated in terms of 60,000,000 jobs, purchasing power to sustain profits, or a rising standard of living, there is a swelling chorus of hope and faith that the world will never again allow itself to lapse into periodic depressions. If this is to be achieved, the business of work must be regarded as it has been during the waras a dedication to high purposes. The supply of work must continue to surpass the supply of workers.

Social workers of necessity hold certain beliefs about employment, and from them proceed to specific proposals. Some of these convictions may be stated as follows:

1. The need for labor is limited only by the world's need for goodsand services.

The total need for workers is no longer unpredictable. It is not an irrational factor influenced by "world markets," "prices," or "enterprise." The need for workers can be gaged by the world's need for goods and services to supply the constantly rising standards of living for the earth's population. This approach, supported by developing international programs of finance, food supply, and cooperation for peace, will require all the effort that the world's working population. can supply for generations to come.

2. Work must be satisfying and provide a decent living.

Employment, even if it occupies a worker's full time, does not meet his requirement unless it provides wages that will purchase a decent living and uses the worker's skill.

3. Mobility of labor and retraining must be assured.

If the number of available jobs does not match the available skills, or if the jobs are in one place and the workers who could best fill them

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are elsewhere, freedom of choice can be assured only if it is made possible for workers to move from place to place with responsible guidance and without force or to secure appropriate retraining for available tasks.

4. There need be no involuntary unemployment in a free society. Full employment does not mean a regimented labor force in which every person is somehow employed at every moment. Full employment is consistent with free choice of job and mobility of labor. It means distinguishing between enough jobs to employ all who can work at suitable occupations and the maintenance of a "labor reserve" that tends to force down wages. If workers are to be free to choose jobs and employers to choose workers, there will be periods when individuals will be "in the market." These periods should be short and the income loss they represent should be compensated so that no worker is forced into unsuitable work.

Social workers have their special reasons for thinking about employment in this way. Their experience teaches them that men work because of an inner need to create and achieve. They are not afraid that the removal of the driving threat of hunger will result in a growing "rocking-chair brigade" who will rest while others labor for them, thus leaving the work of the world undone or in need of excessive effort from a few willing hands.

Social workers have seen more of determined work habits than any other single profession, and they know that such deterioration, whether it be characterized as laziness, inefficiency, clock watching, or plain cussedness, has its roots either in social or personal maladjustment. Unsatisfying work, work that is too hard, hours that are too long, returns that do not even provide for decent subsistence-these are the enemies of production and not natural sloth. Everyone is lazy sometimes. No healthy person is lazy all the time.

The removal of the deterrent aspects of work, the assurance of a decent living, and of really free choice would release resources of personal energy and effort such as the world has never known. The war and its tasks, hideous, repetitive, and immediately unrewarding, should have proved to the world what social workers know-that no work is so inherently distasteful but that, if necessary, it will be done, not by compulsion but by common consent. Even the compulsions we invoked in war have been measures of economy and speed, and they could not have been invoked in a democracy without common consent. The War Department made available a pamphlet on “Will There Be Work for All?" called GI Roundtable EM-22. Addressing men in service, it says in part:

Unemployment does nobody any good. Next to war, it is the most appalling kind of waste in modern human relations. Ironically, war does away with it more quickly than anything else but less permanently.

One thing we have learned: Mass joblessness is not inevitable. We have come to understand that employment rises and falls not in accord with some supernatural law but in response to human decisions, purposes, and activities. What has happened in the course of our wartime effort to defeat a common enemy ought not to be impossible to achieve in a peacetime effort to make a common living. If we can put forth the same effort and imagination toward preserving peace that we have put into the making of war, abundant employment will reward us.

Employment thus became not an end in itself but a result of larger and more compelling purposes. Whether it develops to the full will depend, it would seem, on two things-(1) what kind of plans we make and what steps we take to put