President Roosevelt has worked out a new plan to decrease unemployment and at the same time help the needy. In this plan he attacks the problem systematically. He divides the people concerned into three classes, needy rural families, families in abandoned industrial areas--in coalfields which have been worked out, for example--and, lastly, the unemployed in large cities. The document deals most exhaustively with the first of these groups.

The President's intention is to put these people in a position, again, to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families as farmers. He takes this opportunity to emphasize a very important point, which has hitherto been completely neglected by all those concerned. He points out that these 2farmers should not compete in the market with other farmers. They should draw their livelihood directly from their land. Thus agriculture, which has, in many ways, degenerated into an industry, is put back upon a natural and logical basis.

Roosevelt is explicit and emphatic in saying that these farmers should not be specialists who grow and sell only one product, but that they should produce everything which is suitable for planting in their land, and should at the same time engage in all the other branches of agriculture in so far as there is no actual obstacle in their path. At this point it is said repeatedly, and with especial emphasis, that the solution of the whole agriculture problem depends upon this change in technique. It is very fortunate that Administration circles are now giving heed to this aspect of the situation. If the farmers had been put upon this course from the beginning, and if they had not been impoverished by costly and premature experiments, the agricultural problem would probably have been solved long ago without 3outside interference.

With respect to aid for the other two groups, the President is not yet able to make definite proposals. He suggests that the situation should first of all be thoroughly investigated. Moreover, he does not mention, in this statement, how the plan to aid the farmers is to be carried out, but merely declares that all the Government departments which are concerned will cooperate in the effort to attain the desired result. He then emphasizes that the unemployed are not to be employed by the Government for more than six months. Every effort must be made to prevent this relief plan from becoming a permanent arrangement.

The President lays particular emphasis upon the fact that the Government has no intention of imposing upon the country and the unemployed a system which conflicts with the American ideal of personal responsibility. This 4pronouncement deserves every recognition, but it probably comes somewhat too late. Actually this ideal has been systematically undermined. Americans have become more and more accustomed to asking and expecting aid from the National Government whenever they are in difficulties. Both white and black Americans have gradually slipped into the role of their red countrymen, and find themselves actually, like the Indians, the wards of the Great White Father in Washington.

This change in the concept of the duties and powers of the Government did not begin under the present Administration. However, under this Administration, as a result of the struggle against depression and unemployment, the concept has found much wider acceptance. It is senseless and pointless to deplore or criticize this situation, for these ideas, these ways of thinking and tendencies, are in the air, so to speak, and appear simultaneously in many peoples with different cultures. It can be averted, but there is no point in denouncing it.