◆ SpookStack

That Housing rates a high place needs no argument. But more than slum clearance and new housing is needed. For the America of the future, an area and urban development program of great size is a “must.” Rebuild. ing the centers of cities to remove transportation blocks and to further a good Vife for city and country will require huge amounts. Men who can probe the reaches of outer space will not be content with slums on earth. With an expanding economy go needs for better roads and communica- tion, flood control and conservation. The vast lands now held by military departments—over 27 million acres in the Continental United States—can provide new public recreation areas, and help to conserve vital national re- sources in water power, minerals, forests and wildlife. Government-supported research, now largely military, can be reoriented to peacetime, space-age living. With this should go a genuine program of world development, since we are members of a human family inhabiting a shrinking planet, where our security rests in a large measure upon the sta- bility and welfare of other people. Clearly there is no lack of worthwhile things in which to invest. But will these supply employment to replace various kinds of defense work? For each §5 billion dollars reduction in military spending, it is likely that some- where around 800,000 workers might need either new jobs or new markets for their same output. However, technological changes requiring new machinery and new equipment are taking place all the time. Totally new products will no doubt create many new jobs, as have electronics, television and plastics in the last fifteen years. The field of trade and development holds out a prospect of expanded employment in many trades, as does the building of more schools, houses, hospitals, parks and roads. New buildings mean new equipment. Higher pay for teachers will supply new purchasing power for meeting a backlog of unfilled wants. Tax reductions will facilitate more private buying. The flowering of life, even national life, is in individual, family and community living, and this expresses itself finally in artistic and spiritual life. How would this be furthered by disarmament? In very practical ways: improvement of the necessary material basis of life for those who lack it (through lower taxes, greater productive power, better health and educa- tion}; the possibility of shorter working hourg and thus more leisure time; an atmosphere of faith and hope in a world at peace. -7=