A roaming tramp who had seen a man hang himself because nobody wanted his labor and enthusiasm - broke off his stay abroad and hastened home when young, perceptive John F. Kennedy entered the White House. Here, thought our traveler (my unhumble self), is a man who thinks, and who cares.
Two secret service men grilled me in a corner of the lobby of the All-State Hotel, or rather, one grilled me; the other looked me sternly and silently over from the side. He had a livid scar across his face, suggesting to me that he was ready for any type of action that might become required. The other guests ogled the threesome with apprehension.
When the ordeal was over, I felt that general civilities required a few polite words to the silent partner.
"In 1940," I offered, "a German military intelligence agent, Lieutenant Khul, also looked me over silently like you did. I believe be thought he could read my mind. He hardly could. But I have no doubt that you could, and did."
He came through with a brief response, "Thank you." There was no smile.
When cleared, I telephoned the White House and a voice answered, "I am Paul Black (not his real name), can I help you? "
When Paul heard my errand, clumsily presented, he exploded.
"You cannot see anybody in the White House, now or ever, do you understand?"
"I am not sure I do, Mr. Black."
A question to the communicative secret service man produced a terse, "Paul obviously has grown too big for his britches. Would you wait a minute at the phone?"
A few seconds later came a well-modulated voice, "This is Arthur Schlesinger. Care to come over at eleven?"
Thus began a three year long labor of love with an ever expanding group of Administration economists, historians, planners, farmers and computer nuts. Our goal was simple: continuous full employment for every willing hand.
At the time of the Founding Fathers, employment was a matter of course. A continent was to be developed. Enterprising people from all over the world came here to help in that venture and win a place for themselves. It was impossible at that time to foresee that these United States, of all nations, should fall into the same insensible pattern as the old countries from whence the immigrants hailed; that employment should become a privilege, granted by a few, and that hundreds, later thousands, then millions should be doomed to months or years or sometimes whole life-spans of inactivity, crippling their muscles, brains and self-confidence, a fate worse than death; that the nation as a whole should suffer the loss of billions of man-hours, sorely needed to keep it in shape, in adequate supply of energy, food, clean and healthful air and water, and to keep its money supply stable and sufficient for carrying out required functions. If our Founding Fathers had been able to foresee this incredible trend, they would have included continuous full employment as every citizen ' s inalienable right, and as a requirement for the health and vigor of the nation - all imbedded in the Constitution.
Some, at least, of our economists, businessmen and Congressmen have understood this and are fighting for this most important of all measures: continuous full employment. This could be achieved in a number of viable ways, all with great advantage to our economy, our life patterns, our freedoms, our international relations. The difficulty is luring the twentieth-century distressed and despairing minds into action. It is not necessary for the citizen-voter to understand in detail how it can be done. All she or he has to do is distinguish between the clear-minded and the befuddled, and send the former to Congress or the White House or to head any type of required action.
Forced unemployment, even for one single man for one year, is never "required for the good of the economy". It means an intolerable loss to the economy. It is also the principal cause of inflation. Money paid to people who don't produce is basically inflationary. Though a rich nation can afford some such payments, they become necessary only when an ignorant or corrupt leadership permits the nation to lapse into severe unemployment.
There is a world out there, millions hungry, other millions freezing, and eight million "rich" Americans sitting idly before our television sets, worrying where the groceries will be coming from tomorrow; and about the thousands of tasks that must be done but aren't done here at home: more careful farming to preserve and develop the price-less soil, so it may yield good food rather than overgrown, energy-wasting, chemically loaded questionables; pollution-free energy sources, such as from ocean thermal differences, the sun, wind, geothermal.
I brought the French research results on the Ocean Thermal Difference system to this country in 1947 and after years of continued research here, we were ready for full-blown plants in the fifties, but we had to wait for the stunning blow of quadrupling oil prices before the National Science Foundation became serious, in the seventies. Now, finally, decisive reports have come from grantees all over the nation. On behalf of the University of Massachusetts, a principal investigator, Professor William E. Heronemus, writes in his 1975 spring report:
"Any competent man with a broad-gauge industrial sense of what can be achieved by 1975 US industry using materials, energy and financial base, available for the next 3 decades, will agree that OTECS (Ocean Thermal Difference Energy Conversion Systems) is that which could be done best. The results of this study can be summarized as follows:
a. Enough has been done now by many to guarantee that OTECS is technically feasible.
b. There are clear-cut pathways to make OTECS economically preferable, not just feasible or competitive.
c. Large-scale development, acquisition and deployment of OTECS would be almost identical to the World War II shipbuilding effort. The World has never seen another industrial effort so easy to get started and so capable of producing prodigious numbers of high-class products. (Underlined in the original report) This economy could flood the world with OTECS if there were simply a desire to do so, and the effort would spread from the waterfront back into every portion of the industrialized hinterland like the wildfire of prosperity, if we so desire. The Otecs program which follows is a summary of what could and should be done. Supporting detail can be found in the numerous technical reports and progress reports produced to date by J. Hilbert Anderson, the University of Massachusetts team, the Carnegie Mellon University team, the TRW-Global Marine-United Constructors & Engineers team and the Lockheed-Bechtel team. . ."
At this date numerous more reports from universities and industries all over the nation are out. Following is a brief excerpt of the Lockheed-Bechtel Report, summer 1975:
"This report has established that the use of ocean thermal power is technologically feasible at an acceptable investment cost and at an operating cost comparable to other existing and proposed plants. Half the earth's surface in the tropic zone consists of ocean suitable for OTEC operation. The basic energy source - the sun - will continue whether man makes use of it or not. The environmental consequences are believed to be almost wholly benign for any foreseeable level of exploitation. The implementation of the demonstration OTEC plant and the subsequent authorization for a chain of production plants would be a major contribution to solving the energy crisis and should become an urgent national priority for the U.S."
The "Fourth Workshop" of this Ocean Thermal Difference Energy Conversion System, held in New Orleans 22 - 24 March 1977, featured four hundred dedicated scientists and engineers from the cream of U. S. industry and universities, as compared with one hundred thirty active participants (out of an audience of five hundred attending) at the previous workshop in Houston, Texas in May, 1975. The mood had changed from piece-meal research to demands for building several plants for various purposes simultaneously. An example was THE PARALLEL-TELESCOPIC DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM FOR OCEAN THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION, proposed by Dr. David F. Mayer of the University of New Orleans. This bold yet cautious plan calls for immediate overall design of six configurations, then building of the three designs considered best, all in the course of four years. By 1981 practical power plants would be available and by 1980 "hundreds of them could be producing power, hydrogen, ammonia, substituting natural gas, alcohol and gasoline. The total estimated cost, half a billion dollars over four years, is less than the cost of one week's imported oil."
"The basic concept," writes Dr. Mayer, "is that work be done concurrently rather than serially. Also, when an overall plant design is undertaken, the engineers immediately address the essential questions which must be answered to design the plant. Otherwise, as in the present case, there is a great deal of disoriented research on relatively insignificant problems which have little bearing upon the actual plant design process."
Dr. Mayer's proposal frees us from our confusing seventies, recalling our enterprising forties.
On April 21, 1977, Professor William E. Heronemus summarized our energy policy in a "Chancellor's Lecture Series" talk at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He further proposed building large Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plants abroad and in the U.S., along with wind mills in appropriate locations, at a yearly cost starting with two billion dollars in 1978 and increasing over the years. To start the ball rolling, he took leave from the university, joined the firm Alfa-Laval that has a unique record in such OTEC components as heat exchangers, pumping, pipelines, etc. His own and this company's other employees' estimates envisage such energy systems will cost no more than our current ones, with no pollution, no fuel shortages, no pr ce increases, and a simple, labor- intensive technology offering more ample and more balanced employment.
The fifth OTEC workshop in Miami Beach in 1978 and further developments show promise of achievement and also indications of further delay. Our peculiar power structure and thought patterns have delayed OTEC for decades, and may eventually stop further development - of this as well as other benign systems. When well-known technologies become fashionable, as the century-old OTEC did in the seventies, government as well as scientific bodies feel obliged to make an "evaluation". For this purpose, they choose scientists who never worked with OTEC and know nothing about it. Being presented with 100 pounds of literature, they jump happily into the same traps in which the pioneers found themselves decades ago. The only people able to judge are the "OTECERS" who worked for years on this matter. But these are shunned as "advocates" ready to subvert, deceive and seduce the naive public. This weird superstition is nurtured by the civil service system and the government structure. When a civil servant works with and appreciates OTEC for some years, he is replaced by a newcomer who has to repeat all the old mistakes again and so delays or stops the project.
The nineteen-forties, during which we fought and won World War II, was also a most productive decade in economic discussion and understanding. Yale's Dr. John H.G. Pierson, of United Nations fame, Harvard's Dr. John Philip Wernette, now at Ann Arbor, and Dr. Leon Keyserling, the enlightened Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to President Truman, all began their penetrating research and publications in this decade and were actually listened to then. Today, when we need their insight and advice more than ever, they are virtually unknown, even though they continue their inputs to press and TV sharper than ever. Today, instead, people listen awed to slogans such as "Get the government out of the Market Place!" (or further into it), as if anybody can ever get out of or into the market place. We are in it, forever, governments and individuals. Those who cry the loudest are connected with giant enterprises which live and breathe by the grace of government interference and special protection of their interests. It is the small and daring enterprises breaking new ground that still work on the principle of free enterprise. To them the Government is a constant threat, a merciless agent for the giants who wallow in out-dated methods and equipment, and want to kill competitors. In this senseless fight, the workers suffer, eight million of them at present.
Before quoting from relevant books and articles, may we have a look at present reactions from Washington, DC?
Being fond of Chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisors to Presidents from Leon Keyserling's time, I wrote to the present incumbent, Dr. Alan Greenspan, per 1 October 1974.
"An admirer of your integrity and ingenuity, I noticed a news release, 29 September, quoting you, 'No one has offered a solution toward improving the inflation and employment situation.' It may have been a misquote. Nevertheless, I enclose my August 28 letter to the Vice President in which I list four economists having offered such solution. I listed these four because I know their views and working methods. There are many more, of course, of varying political views, which is an asset in our present critical situation.
"In the United States, private enterprise has already solved the major employment and stability requirements. Only a small additional effort is needed for an adequate solution. Harvard's Dr. John Philip Wernette (now with Ann Arbor) proposes to create a 'stabilization board' to supply this additional service. He first explained it in his book FINANCING FULL EMPLOYMENT (Harvard University Press, 1945). Yale's Dr. John H.G. Pierson (now at 101 Lewis Street, Greenwich, Conn. 06830) wants Congress to do the job, in the spirit of the 1946 Employment Act. He now proposes that Congress shall guarantee full employment and other specified economic conditions required to attain this along with adequate stability. This is achieved by trial and error in our country because of the unique resilience of our economy, as realized also by such foreign observers as Sir William Beveridge and A. de V. Leigh, for 35 years Secretary General of the London Chamber of Commerce, a driving force behind trade at his time, a close friend of Herbert Feis of the State Department and myself. Congressman Reuss and Senators Henry Jackson and Hubert Humphrey well know and appreciate Pierson's views. Pierson's book of 1964 most clearly explains his views though his first book about this was in 1941. The last was in 1972. His articles have graced the New York Times and professional economic journals until this day.
"Full employment has recently been temporarily realized in West Germany, France, and Norway, though without money stability and more by accident than design. It remains for the more comprehensive and independent American economy to make full employment, along with a relatively stable price level. a permanent reality. Some members of the Kennedy Administration worked with me on multi-surveys that would show our real potentials - preliminary to full employment under stable conditions, though not a required preliminary. This revealed to us the vast untapped resources in our nation and what we may achieve if we wish.
"May I suggest you fortify your council with Dr. John H.G. Pierson or Dr. Wernette or both?"
The letter to Vice President Rockefeller of 28 August, 1974, referred to in the above letter, ran as follows:
"It is a privilege to address the most experienced person in the present Administration. and possibly in the nation as a whole -on the matter of the nation's economy.
"It has been heartening to watch the steps already initiated. However, most of the gentlemen consulted appear to view employment and inflation as alternatives. They seem to believe we must curb employment to fight inflation. This crude, simplistic and totally erroneous theory should be balanced against more wide - ranging views represented by such economists as Harvard's John Philip Wernette, the University of California's Seymour Harris (Senior Advisor to the Treasury under two previous administrations), Leon Keyserling, Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors to a previous administration, and others.
"The clearest, most conservative, most cautious and most experienced representative of this group is Yale's Dr. John H.G. Pierson, 101 Lewis Street, Greenwich, Conn. 06830, who, through leading positions in business, in the US Government and in the United Nations, has sharpened and improved the views he acquired and held from his early years. A quick grasp of his views may be obtained by reading first the summation in the enclosed issue of the Congressional Record of the expected results of his full employment policy. The rest of the article explains this policy's conditions and functions.* His four books provide more details.
"I feel that a consulting body not including Dr. Pierson or his views would be a tragedy for the nation. And who am I, who dare make such a statement? I have worked in 'almost all imaginable capacities in 65 countries throughout all parts of the world. To some I am known as the restorer of Nor-way's economy after the Nazi occupiers had smashed it. To others I am blamed as the originator of the abortive plan to kidnap Hitler and shorten World War II by eight months. It was abortive because Franklin Roosevelt turned it down, 'We must beat the Germans so they know it.' I headed a UN mission to Tunisia, hoping to bring the economy of the Southern part into shape. I worked with a previous administration on multi-surveys we hoped would initiate inflation-free full employment. All the while I have delved into humbler work, for a living, at the same time maintaining and increasing my knowledge of the details that form the building blocks of nations' lives and economies. And from 1938 I have watched and admired the spot-less, impressive, incomparable career of the man who has now graced the United States by accepting the Vice-Presidency.
The Vice-President gracefully answered, "Thank you for your recent message and enclosure. I appreciate your taking the time to share your views on the nation's economy with me."
The Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, through his special assistant, went into more detail. "Thank you for your letter to Alan Greenspan and for bringing the work of Mr. Pierson and Mr. Wernette to our attention. Mr. Greenspan stated that, unfortunately, 'no one had offered a solution' which would effect an immediate and simultaneous solution in inflation, production, employment and interest rates. The period immediately ahead will be difficult, in that progress cannot be made on all fronts simultaneously, and realism dictates that we recognize this and choose which of the unpleasant consequences we face has the highest priority. Otherwise we are not likely to make progress either with inflation or with production or unemployment. Once the reduction in inflation is underway the proposals of Mr. Pierson and Mr. Wernette may be more applicable."
My response to this message, and further correspondence with a Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to an earlier president, with senators and newsmen and selected economists, will follow as illustrations to coming chapters.
* This article is presented as an appendix at the end of this book.
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