Mrs. Arthur. That, Senator, I agree, is the basic problem; but the difficulties of doing it, unless all are willing to cooperate, are very great, are they not?

Senator Green. I have a number of very definite examples of how difficult it is. I have just come from a special session of Congress which was called to meet them. To begin with, experts were agreed at the beginning of this year that there were excellent opportunities for a large increase in building.

They expected, in fact, that a least a billion dollars more would be spent in 1937 than in 1936. This expenditure would be cash, which meant that $3,000,000,000 would be added to the purchasing power of the Nation.

People were ready to build and had the money to buy the materials at the prices they then were. The result, if this had actually taken place, would have been more employment, more prosperity.

Mrs. Arthur. What prevented it?

Senator Green. Just this Mrs. Arthur: The building-material people raised their prices. Those who had been prepared to buy found that they could not at the new prices, with the consequence that the whole promised building program was nipped in the bud.

Mrs. Arthur. Does not that do violence to the theory that prices are simply the result of economic forces which cannot be controlled?

Senator Green. That is a principle of a free market – that is, a market in which no business is powerful enough, in the sense of having reserves enough, to be able to keep their good off the market.

But the few great industries – steel, cement, building materials, automobile tires – represent such a concentration of wealth and power that they can hold their goods off the market so long and they can keep their prices so high that at times people cannot buy.

Mr. Arthur. How far is the raise of wages responsible for the rise in prices, Senator Green?

Senator Green. It cannot be charged to the raise of wages, and I give you an example. Steel wages were raised 10 percent. The price of steel has been raised 21 percent. Even if one includes with the raise of wages the increased cost of the materials which the steel companies have to buy and ascribes that increased cost entirely to the raise of wages in other industries, the result would justify at the most only a half of that tremendous raise. This policy on the part of the steel company acted like a boomerang. They are suffering from the results of their folly and disregard of the common interest. The steel mills are now operating at 30 percent, which, in plain language, means they are able to sell less than one-third of the steel they are able to manufacture. Thousands of steel workers are out of work, and the people from whom these steel workers would buy if they were working see the result when they look at the idle goods on their shelves.

Miss Farmer. What are the consequences of this?

Mr. Meredith. Oh, I think the consequences are clear enough to any one. Certainly one of them is that the Government will be obliged to continue its relief program and expansion of public works. Isn’t that so, Senator?

Senator Green. Yes; it may well be necessary for the Government to continue spending.

Mrs. Arthur. Is there a limit to which the Government can go?

Senator Green. Not so long as Government spending adds to the Nation’s income and the Nation’s wealth. In fact, at a senatorial committee hearing last June, in my cross-examination of Mr. Tom Girdler, chairman of the board of the Republic Steel Corporation, he finally admitted that the Government should help "to the best of its ability to do so." I can see no other logical conclusion to reach. If at the conclusion of this machine age, private industry cannot give sufficient employment, what are the men and women out of employment to do? They cannot earn anything; they have nothing. Shall we let them dry in vain not only for bread but for other necessaries they know our national resources could provide them with under competent economic management? Will they quietly starve and let their children starve with them? I do not believe it. It is the duty, and also it is to the interest of the Government representing all the people of this great country, to supply the deficiency. The greatest waste and the greatest extravagance is the waste of our human resources in unemployment.

The necessity for the Government to engage in these activities is not the fault of the unemployed and is not the fault of the Government, which is in duty bound to give assistance. It is the fault of the people who brought about this situation – a situation from which the whole country is made to suffer and which is directly attributable, in my opinion, to a very small group of selfish big capitalists. Their talk of normalcy that you hear, boils down to setting the controls for another tailspin in the 1929 manner. In that disaster it was not they who suffered most. Their talk of lack of confidence is designed to confuse. What big business needs is not confidence, but customers – and they have chosen a course which, in its very nature, deprives them of customers. Every effort which would not do violence to the common good has been made to supply those customers. Every opportunity for cooperation has been offered. The Government of the people has extended the hand of fellowship, but the masters of men have looked the other way.  

Miss Farmer. I personally very much doubt whether such people really believe in democracy or have faith in Lincoln’s common man. Don’t you think, Senator, that they are really afraid at the prospects of change – of what this juster distribution of wealth, which you spoke of earlier, is going to cost them?

Senator Green. Of course, that has much to do with it. We live in a changing world. It is always changing. Growth means change in character. Progress means change in position. Life itself means constant change. Changelessness means death. Yet there have always been those who, while they recognize this fact and the necessity of change in almost everything else cannot recognize the fact that there must also be change in our social, economic, and political institutions. They are not only unreconciled but feel it their duty to fight to keep them changeless.

Mr. Meredith. Precisely, Senator – and I think it is because of this fear of change, don’t you, that the effort is being made to alienate the worker on the farm from the worker in the town and to make the independent businessman believe that his interests lie in advancing this maneuver.

Senator Green. Yes, Mr. Meredith, we see the results of this strategy all about us, a strategy which sets brother against brother, sect against sect, State against State, country against town, in a determination to prevent the great American community from protecting its collective interests.

Miss Farmer. Oh, we in the theater feel the hand of these people, don’t we Burgess? I mean, of course, the censorship to which plays are subjected – and particularly motion-picture plays. The drama, if it is to have any kind of value as art at all, must reflect the opinions and conditions of its own day. Isn’t it absurd that in many States it’s impossible to show a movie in which there is a scene showing a strike? Why they –

Mr. Meredith. When you get talking about strikes –

Miss Farmer. Just a minute, Burgess. I am not talking about strikes – I am talking about the fact that scenes showing strikes cannot be shown in many places in America. And it’s as ridiculous not to be able to show scenes of strikes as it is not to be able to show automobile races, or the crowds doing to vote, or the sailing of a great ship – or any of the other things that are part of the modern world – and the only reason that people, and by "people," I mean that very small group that wants to remain in control of the channels of information – the only reason they won’t let pictures of strikes be shown is that they want to keep the information back from the people so that the people will not be able to pass an intelligent opinion of whether a strike is justified or not; in other words, they want the people to accept their opinion of a strike and not form their own opinion. Now, that is not in the tradition of democracy, that is not in the tradition of America, and that is my objection, not that I support strikes or that I don’t support strikes, but that I feel that I want to be informed and everybody else ought to be informed on this very important subject; and I am not willing to surrender my right to form an independent judgment to anybody.

Mr. Burgess. Speech! Speech!

Miss Farmer. All right, call it a speech, but it’s awfully close and awfully vital to me – and it ought to be awfully close to everybody who loves America and her ways, because those who love America love her people – and those arguments which are put forward that such "scenes might incite people to violence" is an insult to the good sense and patience of Americans. Those who advance it might well quote Alexander Hamilton’s remark: "Your people, sir – it is a great beast."

Mr. Meredith. Of course, I agree with you, Frances * * * I don’t think there’s any argument about that. Jefferson would be all with you – and so would Washington – and so would Lincoln – and so would any of the founding fathers. Washington started one of the first public schools, paying for it out of his own pocket in order that the people might have contact with knowledge. Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear from knowledge. It is only those who have some private little game to play that insist on ignorance. Such people are always with us and they have always opposed every advancement that democracy has made toward bringing nearer the promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which, in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are made to all Americans.

Senator Green. I wonder if most of us realize how precious is the privilege of celebrating Christmas in a democracy? Some of you may have disagreed with what I have said, but there is one thing about which you and I cannot possibly disagree. I feel perfectly safe in saying what I will, whether you disagree or not. We would not bring disgrace upon our country by attempting to silence each other – or persecute each other. That is the test of whether one believes in democracy. That is the privilege of celebrating Christmas in a democracy.

I happen to have with me a very old prayer which is appropriate to what we have been discussing. It is from Queen Elizabeth’s prayer book. Let me read it. "Thou, O Lord, provideth enough for all men with Thy most liberal and bounteous hand, but whereas Thy gifts are, in respect of Thy goodness and free favor, made common to all men, we, through naughtiness, niggardship, and distrust, do make them private and peculiar. Correct Thou the thing which our iniquity hath put out of order, and let Thy goodness supply that which our niggardliness hath plucked away."