UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

Dampening the ardor of a large group of philanthropic workers, President Roosevelt chopped down their sweeping social security program to one subject for early enactment, unemployment insurance. Refusing to allow the national government to assume the entire burden of such a plan, he insisted that this "part of social insurance should be a cooperative federal-state undertaking."

During a period of economic depression, it is essential for the government to take advantage of the favorable state of public opinion and to forward progressive legislation which is impossible under the psychology of prosperity. But too often, the President has concentrated control of such progressive action in the hands of the federal administrators under an erroneous assumption that all such legislation must be uniform. At this stage, when there is a wide divergence of opinion on many of the details of unemployment insurance, it is necessary for the states to experiment and to discover the system best suited to their peculiar needs. It is folly for the federal government to adopt uniform legislation which shall apply to the widely divergent conditions of the various sections of the United States. While the magnitude of the reserve funds of such a program demand that the national government control their investment and liquidation, laws are necessary to carry into practical effect the general principles which the federal government may find it expedient to lay down.

If this attitude of the President may be interpreted as a tendency to increasing devolution of responsibility on state governments, it is highly praiseworthy. While certain of the problems raised by the current depression are best solved by national action, it is important to realize that there is a great variety of services which can best be performed by the states and which should be delegated to them rather than undertaken by an overburdened Congress and an extensive bureaucracy.