A HISTORY of the NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD, 1933-1943. the Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1969 H
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This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received ’ WARKEN, Philip W., 1935- A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD, 1933-1943. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1969 History, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan (^1 Copyright by Philip W. Warken 1970 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD 1933-1943 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University by Philip W. Warken, A.B., M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 1969 Approved by Adviser Department of History ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am greatly indebted to the Mershon Center for Security Policy Studies for financial support and to its former Director, the late Edgar S. Purniss, for his concern and encouragement. The National Archives and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library facilitated my work by giving skillful assistance in the search of the records. The Department of English, History and Govern ment of the United States Naval Academy provided clerical help and made it possible for me to travel during the academic year. 11 VITA July 27) 1935 • • • Born - Columbus, Ohio 1957 ........... A.B., Capital University, Bexley, Ohio I96O-I963 ..... Graduate Assistant, Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1963-I964 ..... Mershon Fellow, The Ohio State University 1964-I965 ..... Mershon Doctoral Fellow, The Ohio State University 1965-I966 ........ Instructor, English, History, and Government Department, The United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland 1966-I968 ........ Assistant Professor, English, History, and Government Department, The United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History Political and Social History Professor Robert H. Bremner of the United States, 19OO-I968 Political and Social History Professor Francis P. of the United States, I85O-I9OO Weisenburger Political and Social History Professor Eugene H. Roseboom of the United States, 1789-1900 The Middle East Professor Sydney N. Fisher Medieval Professor Franklin Pegues 111 FIELDS OF STUDY— Continued Political Parties and Pressure Professor E. Allen Helms Groups National Security Policy Professor Edgar S. Furniss IV TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............. ii VITA .................................................... iii INTRODUCTION............................................ 1 Chapter I. CONCEPTS OF PLANNING, 1929-1933 4 II. EVOLUTION OF THE NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD, 1933-1935 ............................... 38 III. EVOLUTION OF THE NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD, 1935-1939 ............................... 62 IV. THE NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD AND ITS PROGRAMS................................... 106 V. PLANNING FOR DEFENSE AND W A R ..................... 135 V I. PLANNING FOR POST W A R ........................... 182 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................ 251 INTRODUCTION In the years between the onset of the Great Depression and the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt as President many suggestions for ending the economic crises and for preventing a recurrence were offered by representatives of business, labor, and the intellectual community. The details of the proposals varied but among the more common provisions were those calling for the use of public construc tion as a counter-cyclical tool and some degree of public or private economic planning. Partly in response to this agitation, Congress in 1931 passed the Federal Employment Stabilization Act. The agency created by the act was charged with gathering economic information to help the government anticipate trends and with the assemblying of Federal construction projects into planned reserves for counter-cyclical use. The agency quickly fell into dususe but other more vigorous agencies were created under the New Deal. The Emergency Administration for Public Works under Harold Ickes was charged with relieving unemployment through the construc tion of socially valuable public works. It was quickly apparent that few pre-planned projects were available and that no method for evaluating alternative proposals had been worked out. To help him get the much needed relief underway, Ickes, on July 20, 1933, created the National Planning Board to establish evaluation criteria and advise him on project selection. The NPB filled this function but became increasingly aware of the lack of information necessary for the wise use of the nation’s resources. Accordingly, it recommended that a permanent and more bioadly based planning agency he established. President Roosevelt agreed and on June 30, 193^ established the National Resources Board, an independent, Cabinet Committee responsible directly to him. The NRB enlarged upon the areas of interest of the National Planning Board appointing committees to gather information and make recommendations for the use of water and land resources and which provided the additional advantage of bringing representatives of many departments together and creating a long needed interchange of information. Its most important contribution, however, was its final report which was the first national inventory of the country’s resources and their associated problems. The decision of the Supreme Court which overturned the National Industrial Recovery Act threatened the existence of the NRB because it was from this act that the agency drew its legislative authority. The President, however, desired to continue the agency and on June 15, 1935, he reconstituted it under the authority of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act as the National Resources Com mittee. Again in 1939» the planning agency came close to being abolished. It was excluded from the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act but again the President saved the agency. Using the power given him under the Reorganization Act of 1939» the President consolidated the NRC and the moribund Federal Employment Stabilization Board into the National Resources Planning Board and placed it in the Executive Office of the President. Both while constituted as the NRC and the NRPB, the agency continued to expand its range of activity but the most dramatic expansion in its activity coincided with the outbreak of the war in Europe. Along with most of the rest of the government defense and war related undertakings took an increasing amount of agency time. The NRPB, made studies of energy supply, worked to solve the problem of industrial congestion, and organized the committee to inventory the scientific and specialized personnel of the country. The NRPB, however, continued to show its commitment to long- range planning by assuming responsibility for the coordination of post war plans. Even more importantly the NRPB showed its continu ing concern for improving the human condition by conducting studies on welfare programs, social security, health, education, and economic stability. These results were largely consolidated into two reports which became the most controversial issued by the agency. The post war reports were the last significant productions of ten years of work. Shortly after the reports appeared Congress cut off funds for the NRPB and after completing its housekeeping chores it went out of existence on August 1, 1943. CHAPTER I CONCEPTS OF PLANNING, 1929-1933 In 1929, the United States entered upon its thirty-fourth business recession since 1796 and its ninth of the twentieth cen tury.^ The inevitability of the business cycle with its periodic downturns and accompanying misery had come to be accepted by many Americans and the suddenness of the collapse left many others too numb to react. Besides, if the downturn brought the reality of misery, it also brought the promise of recovery— if downturn was inevitable so was upturn. Because of the shock or the acceptance of economic inevitability, positive reaction to the depression was 2 slow in developing. Many traditional American beliefs were changing, however. People who had accepted the myth that unemployment was the result of personal failings— wasteful habits, lack of character and ambition— found it increasingly difficult to maintain such a belief as they watched hard working neighbors thrown out of work and remain out of 1 Wesley C. Mitchell, Business Cycles, the Problem and Its Setting (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1927),287. ^Nicholas Murray Butler, "Unemployment," Charles A. Beard, editor, American Faces the Future (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1932), 142. work month after weary month. The 1920’s, which people thought had ushered in a new era of permanent prosperity, had accustomed many more people than ever before to the good life and its loss left them less willing to accept lower standards and to question events pre- 3 viously considered inevitable. As the depression stretched on, the comfortable certainty of the inevitability of recovery declined. Confidence that the system was just temporarily out of balance and if left alone, would automatically right itself, after the necessary adjustments, of course, was questioned and the possibility that the system was subject to rational, human control discussed, and fre quently accepted. The Programs of European countries to relieve the distress of unemployment and to influence economic developments, which tended to disprove the let nature take its course attitude, could not be ignored. The more scientific temper of the times made it more difficult to ascribe the troubles to ”. fate or an inscrutable Providence. ..."