President Roosevelt's proposal for unemployment insurance now before the 74th Congress will prove of deeper significance than the casual onlooker may suppose. Introduced at a time when the Gold Clause Cases have crowded it off the front pages and out of the public mind, its legislation has been allowed to be shaped by a handful of theoretical insurance advocates and a certain group of Democratic Barnums and bureaucrats each desirous to amend the bill in some regretable fashion in order to get a modicum of credit for it.

Unquestionably one of the most important matters before Congress, the unemployment insurance bill characterizes the astounding and revolutionary change in the social philosophy of the country that has taken place within the last few years. Unfortunate is the fact that the bill is being met with too little opposition from employers and that the rugged individualists have contented themselves by taking ineffectual pot shots at its provisions. Keen observers feel that in the mad political scramble the bill will be so butchered that the resulting panacea will be based on the idea, preached by Justice Brandies when he was a prophet in the wilderness, that each state should experiment with the various theories, and that "out of such experience should come the most practical answer to each individual case," whether it be that of the so-called Wisconsin Reserve Plan or some other sort. Actually the greatest asset of unemployment insurance rests in the blanket protection it affords to both employer and employee. The proposed plan, now being formulated in several states, wherein the employers are generously allowed to contribute to the fund and the employees to stand cheering on the sidelines, would defeat the whole purpose of the bill both in cooperation and spirit.

No doubt the abysmal ignorance or indifference of the public prints account for a respectable measure of failure of the plan to work out as yet. But when pessimistic commentators of the opposition state that it will be a law in three months, there seems far too little time for a good conservative fight against its bad features. The only hope for a square deal to capital--and protection for labor,--remains in a strong protest.