Biggest Job

"We plan now for the better world we aim to build. . . . There must be a more abundant life for the masses of people of all countries. . . . There are so many millions of people in this world who have never been adequately fed and clothed and housed. By undertaking to provide a decent standard of living for these millions, the free peoples of the world can furnish employment to every man and woman who seeks a job. ... In international as in national affairs economic policy can no longer be an end in itself. It is merely a means for achieving social objectives."

With these words Franklin Roosevelt last week approached the great problem of the post-war world. He spoke nominally to delegates of the International Labor Office, last surviving adjunct of the League of Nations,* but actually to the world. His outline of the task to be undertaken was so vague that it meant little as yet. But he had laid down the only basic formula for its solution: a decent standard of living and full employment must go together, for neither can be had alone.

But what group in the U.S., or in the world, could lead this great post-war undertaking? Specifically, the President promised a major role to the International Labor Office. But its 250 delegates and advisers from 33 countries had just finished a week of talk that gave no promise of their ability to do the job. In their session at Columbia University they had poured out floods of high-minded eloquence until some of them protested, in voluminous orations, against the flood of talk. In an atmosphere of futility that sometimes deepened to gloom, with no crowds in the galleries to listen, with few signs that the U.S. imagination had been fired by their plans, the delegates prepared to go back to their countries--those who still had countries to go back to.

*The Swiss now grow wheat in the Geneva parks where League delegates used to walk. In Princeton, N. J., the League office (economic and financial department) is so obscure that few townspeople even know it is there.

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