ECONOMY AND THE BAG BARONS

Highly academic and to a large degree unworkable is Dean Donham's remedy for the economic chaos which has brought about the present depression. In his new book "Business looks at the Unforeseen," Mr. Donham suggests that economic planning be done by a "central thinking agency." Unfortunately, it would be only an advisory body to whisper in the ear of Big Business. Ideal as this method might seem to the magnate, history and experience surely point out that an advisory agency could never win enough support by gentle suasion to untangle the knots with which conflicting interests bind the commerce of the nation.

Advisory boards have always been peculiarly unsuccessful in their relations to American business. The adventures of the Departments of the Interior and of Agriculture in protecting the public lands afford a memorable example of this. The Interstate Commerce Commission was also unsuccessful in its attempts at regulation until Roosevelt gave it the power to enforce its regulations. The moral fibre of the American people seems hardly strong enough to prevent mulcting the public a la Jay Gould without drastic regulation. But the later effectiveness of the Interstate Commerce Commission points the way to a practical control of American economy. The basic industries of the nation do business on a nation-wide scale, and are subject to control by the federal government. Thus it has the power to establish a truly effectual regulation of the commerce, and to institute a measure of the economic order which is needed. It is too soon to hope for developments of such magnitude, but when they come they must come in a workable form, not in the guise of easily frustated "advisory" boards.