Public ownership--the way out.

• Position: THE 1930S FLASHBACK - Possible solution to unemployment - Editorial - Brief article

February 5, 1938, editorial

We do not consider public ownership a panacea. We do not think at it will solve all our problems.

However, if broadly conceived, public ownership does offer a way out of many of our immediate and pressing problems. And it has the advantage of being immediately applicable in some form almost everywhere.

Consider, for example, the problem of the unemployed, admittedly one of the most serious of our immediate problems. Public ownership properly extended and applied will enable us to meet this problem head on and solve it.

Let the government--federal, state, and municipal--immediately and progressively launch all kinds of useful and needed public projects: roads, viaducts, under- and overpasses, bridges, reforestation, soil conservation, flood control, reclamation projects, electric light and power projects, large and small, rural electrification, air conditioning, electric house heating, schools, libraries, hospitals, parks, playgrounds, the development of the processing of coal, utilization...