INDEPENDENCE VERSUS DEPENDENCE 135 



We have in this country at present about fifteen 

 million men and women, formerly employed, who are 

 today unemployed. In the aggregate, this army of ex- 

 factory-workers, ex- farm-laborers, ex-railroad-work- 

 ers, ex-office and store workers, has created such a 

 stupendous and complex problem that it is easy for 

 us to forget that in its fundamentals the problem of 

 every one of these fifteen million human beings is 

 exactly the same. If we consider it from the stand- 

 point of the individual unemployed workers, we shall 

 avoid the danger of being deceived by the sheer size of 

 the problem. Now if we consider it this way, here is 

 what we find: John Doe, who was formerly employed 

 perhaps in an office, perhaps in a factory is now 

 no longer employed by that office or that factory. 

 What is more, he cannot find employment in other 

 offices or factories. 



What, now, is the difference in John Doe's situa- 

 tion before unemployment and after? Before unem- 

 ployment and while he was still employed, he received 

 every pay day a certain sum of money as wages or 

 salary for the time he spent working for the firm 

 which employed him. John Doe, if he was the bread- 

 winner of a family, took this money and with it his 

 family bought food and clothes and entertainment; 

 they paid for housing in the form of rent (or if they 

 owned their own home, in the form of taxes or inter- 

 est), and they paid the installments on debts which 

 they had contracted in buying their furniture, their 

 automobile, their home, and if they were thrifty, they 



