Tomorrow without Fear [Continued from front of c over] official who believes that America's greatest days lie still ahead. It is timely, poignant, thoughtful, readable—a book all Americans should read. Galley proofs of this book were sent, before publication, to a number of authorities who would be interested in the technical aspects of Mr. Bowles' plan. Printed below are a few of the comments received at the time of publication. "The great virtue of this book is that it "This book is grand. Clear, precise, is written in language the layman can flowing diction; facts brilliantly mar­ understand. Everyone who is sufficient­ shalled; lively ideas—it is in all a first­ ly interested in the social and economic rate job." — ALVIN H. HANSEN problems of our times to want to un­ Professor of Political Economv derstand and do something about them Harvard Graduate School of should read this informed and enlight­ Public Administration ening book." —MAKRIXER S. ECCLES Chairman, Board of Governors "I have read Tomorrow Without Fear Federal Reserve System with much interest, and am in cordial agreement with practically all the con­ clusions. I shall be glad to see it have "Mr. Bowles has done a remarkable great influence on public affairs." job in covering a large and complicated —E. A. GOLDENWEISER set of problems, with a simple and win­ Member, Institute for Advanced Study ning kind of exposition which ought to Princeton University be very effective." —JOHN MAURICE CLARK "I think it is an important and timely Professor of Economics book." —JOHN KENNETII GALRRAITH Columbia University An editor of Fortune TOMORROW WITHOUT FEAR BY Chester Bowles SIM ON A N D S CHUSTER, N E W YORK 1946 ALL BIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY CHESTER BOWLES PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC. ROCKEFELLER CENTER, 1230 SIXTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 20, N. Y. HARVARD iNlVERSITY LIBRARY JUN 4 1946 A""*­­ ILLUSTRATIVE CHARTS BY HOWARD SPARBER t CHART ON PAGE 15 ADAPTED FROM CLEVELAND TRUST COMPANY'S CHART, "AMERICAN BUSINESS ACTIVITY SINCE 1790" MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS BO OK is dedicated to the men and women of our armed forces, who have earned for them­ selves, for all Americans, and for all mankind, the right to a better tomorrow. The author's proceeds from this edition will be given to the Society of Friends for relief and rehabilitation overseas among needy people of all races and nationalities, How I Came to Write This Book I am not a professional writer. I am not a practicing war? What about prices, profits, taxes? Is depression economist or a forecaster of future events. I am an avoidable? Or is it as inevitable as it was after World American citizen deeply concerned, like many an­ War I? other, with my country and its welfare, and anxious Thousands of w age earners have asked us again and to contribute what 1 can to the solution of its prob­ again: What are my chances for a job? What about lems. the cost of living? What are my chances for a decent During more than four years of wartime govern­ wage? Will booming postwar production take up the ment service I have had a unique opportunity to learn slack that made for prewar unemployment? Will mil­ at first h and what millions of us Americans are think­ lions of fobs again be scrapped when the boom is ing and worrying about. At times OPA has received over? as many as 2JA mi llion telephone calls a week—from Thousands of farmers have asked us again and businessmen, from farmers, from industrial workers, again: What lies ahead for us? After the boom period from doctors and teachers and lawyers, from the house­ is over, will prices for farm products slump disas­ wives who buy the goods that make our factories go. trously as they did after the last war? Every week nearly half a million people have visited Thousands upon thousands of returning servicemen OPA boards all over the country—in Back Bay, Butte, have asked and are still asking, this most persistent the Bronx, and 5500 other places. Every day tens of question of all: How will we veterans find our places thousands of letters have tumbled in upon us. in the civilian economy? Will there be jobs enough, In addition we have shared the knowledge of 640 and good jobs enough, to go around both for us and. OPA Industrial Advisory Committees, nearly 100 OPA for everybody else? Will there be apple­sellers this Labor Advisory Committees, 68 OPA Farm Advisory time on American street corners? Committees, and Consumer and Trade Committees in Each of these groups has its own special problems the thousands. to face in the future. But clearly the solution of those All the people who have come to see us, who have problems can only come from an objective study of called us, written us letters or sent us wires, have had the needs of our economy as a whole, and the develop­ some very specific problems relating to rent control, ment of a positive course of action to satisfy the broad price control, or rationing. interests of us all. But almost always these people, in addition to their In the course of time and after many long talks with specific problems, have raised general questions that all kinds of people from all walks of life, I began to open the door on tomorrow. put together many parts of the problem and its solu­ The nearer we came to the end of the war, the more tion like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Gradually persistent became these questions which had no direct an understandable pattern seemed to evolve. connection with problems OPA was supposed to solve. The facts and ideas I have gathered are not star­ Since V­J Day the public concern about the future has tlingly new. Over a period of eighteen months I have risen even more sharply. put them down solely in the hope that they will pro­ Thousands of businessmen have asked us again and voke interest and thought in solving the economic again: What conditions will face my business after the difficulties which confront us. OS Contents 1. The Challenge 1 2. An Inventory of America—1940 4 3. Why We Bogged Down 13 4. The New Deal Moves In 24 5. The "Mature Economy" Goes to War 30 6. The $200,000,000,000 Question 34 7. We Are Going to Live Better 44 8. A Better Division of a Bigger Economic Pie 51 9. The Government's Role in a Free Economy 57 10. What All This Means to You and Me and the Next Fellow 66 11. "The Impossible We Do Immediately—the Miraculous Takes a Little Longer" 76 12. Live and Help Live 84 13. Tomorrow Without Fear 87 1 The Challenge HE SHOOTING came to an end months ago and today time we would succeed in building a prosperous and Tthe guns are quiet on all the fronts of the Second lasting peace. World War. But we are not yet back to the ways of Added to the feeling that "we have been here peace and we all know that there is a difficult road before" was die realization that, while we faced the ahead. same problems again, there was one tremendous dif­ The ending of this war, it seems to me, has been ference. No one could fully weigh the meaning of profoundly different from the ending of the First atomic energy, but we all knew that in wresting this World War. This time we have our earlier experience secret from nature we had assumed the most awful to look back upon. We are made uneasy and thought­ responsibility ever carried by the race of man. And ful as we recall how last time the peace miscarried. everyone wondered whether the advances in the Bret­ Some of us remember the warning that James ton Woods Agreements and the United Nations Con­ Harvey Robinson gave us twenty years ago in his The ference, great though they were, had not suddenly Mind in the Making: "There can be no secure peace been dwarfed by this new development, so rich in except of die whole world; no prosperity but a general creative promise, yet so dreadful in destruction. prosperity, and this for the simple reason that we are This soberness, although increased by the use of the all now brought so near together and are so pathet­ atomic bomb, was evident long before even V­E or ically and intricately interdependent, that the old V­J Day. It was evident throughout the war. It was notions of noble isolation and national sovereignty evident, I think, in the way the general storekeeper in are magnificently criminal." Maine, the miner in West Virginia, the dentist in Robinsons was not the only voice. Many another Dubuque, accepted wartime controls such as had cried a similar warning after the last war. But those never been attempted in the earlier war—controls that warnings went unheeded, and so we and all the other went against every American grain. great nations drifted into the Great Depression, and In our whole handling of the war, in both its mili­ out of that depression came the forces which made tary and its civilian aspects, we proved that we could the Second World War. Had we and the other great learn from our own experience and avoid repeating nations solved our postwar problems wisely then, the mistakes we once had made.