Books That Ought to Be Written

Abstract

S EVERAL years ago I was invited to take part in a program held at a college in Georgia on the subject of poverty or abundance in that state. I accepted the invitation and then began searching for information about Georgia. I wanted definite information on human and physical resources. I wanted the number and distribution and conditions of living of tenant-farmers and factory workers. I wanted definite information on other occupations and professions. I wanted reliable information on city, county, and state finances; on wealth, public debt, and taxation; bookstores, libraries, and reading habits; schools and colleges; diets and diseases; soils, climate, and forests; water power and minerals; and numerous other subjects of similar interest and importance. Without definite detailed information on all such subjects it would be impossible to discuss the subject of poverty or abundance in Georgia in terms that could have any real meaning. I searched for information on these subjects. If I had had ten years in which to prepare and had had a staff of experts at my command, I could have compiled in this time the information absolutely indispensable to any intelligent and fruitful discussion of this important subject. Some of the information needed was already available in Census reports and in miscellaneous books and public documents. Some information that had the appearance of being not wholly trustworthy and that might have been very misleading was obtained from one of the state departments. This gave, without any critical comment, a tabulation of the values of the agricultural and manufactured products of the state, without taking the space to tell the value of the agricultural and other raw materials included in the value of manufactured products. The usual procedure in computing the value of manufactures and in comparing this value with the value of agricultural products is, of course, to deduct the value of the raw materials from the total value of manufactures. This gives the value added by manufacture and is strictly comparable to the value of agricultural products. This procedure, one would think, would always be followed