Sprague to Directing Classes

In a huff last autumn. Professor Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague resigned as money adviser to the Treasury. Since then he has returned to his chair at the Harvard Business School, has been retained as foreign exchange and trade adviser to General Motors Export Co. and has attempted to create "an aroused and organized public opinion," which he said was the only "defense from a drift into unrestrained inflation." Most conservative businessmen regarded him as their best friend and stoutest ally. Last week they were shocked and startled when Professor Sprague turned around and let fly at them because they "were not ready to take risks."

"I am not nearly as critical of the Administration as I am of a large proportion of the business executives of this country," said Dr. Sprague. "When businessmen go to Washington they talk of unfair competition and chiselers. They are too greedy and magnify their own difficulties and interests. . . .

"We will get out of this depression, as I see it, only if business is sufficiently enterprising in the next year, even in spite of the faulty policies of the NRA and the CWA, to absorb an increasing number of unemployed wage earners. After all, unemployment is the result of errors in judgment made by ourselves, the directing classes. . . .

"Business should strive to secure larger volume and more stable profits instead of attempting to raise the price level. . . . A choice must be made between the retention of a considerable amount of competition . . . or a very large measure of Government control. If we have a recession again such as we had last September and October, there is no doubt that our rulers will ask for even more extensive powers."

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