Unemployment compensation funds: Their need and manner of application

Creation of an accurate public opinion is one of the hardest tasks. In no field has the burden been more severe than when dealing with the subject of unemployment. Though this industrial problem has long been evident, there do not exist any comprehensive, or definitely accepted theories, as to its causes and remedies. Particularly in the United States, are we too prone to consider it a practical question for practical men and are apt to discourage and be impatient with theorists who propose to gather in all the scientific detail, ponder long, and arrive at mature conclusions. Tied up as it is, with our economic and social life, the problem of unemployment prevention and relief is of ranking importance, affecting the welfare of the millions who earn their daily bread. If it were possible, notwithstanding the immediacy of the problem to our daily life, to apply an unbiased and observant mind to the factors which, so far as we know, produce unemployment, no doubt some adequate basis may be ascertained for dealing with the resultant phenomena. The gravity of the problem is worthy of any amount of effort. It hangs like a somber shadow over our industrial life and is entirely paradoxical in this lend of high economic prosperity.