[ 346 ] DONALD A. RITCHIE committee had considered a program in which the worker would receive government aid "as a right and not as a grant" was significant, but it qualified its support and postponed taking a firm stand on the issue. The Mitchel administration failed to conduct any further studies on unemployment insurance. This failure reflected a national suspicion against involving government in the individual's economic life on a permanent basis. Although the Massachusetts legislature became the first to debate unemployment insurance officially, in 1916, it was not until 1932 that Wisconsin became the first state actually to institute a working program.43 Mayor Mitchel accepted the rest of the committee's two reports with pleasure. "I have heard nothing but praise of the undertaking" he assured its members. To Mitchel the reports showed concrete evidence of a major achievement of his administration. Under his leadership, businessmen had at last become convinced that "business welfare and public welfare are one and inseparable!'44 Since the Gary committee had officially disbanded with the presentation of its second report, Mitchel appointed a new committee under the leadership of another businessman, William D. Baldwin, president of the Otis Elevator Company, to implement the report's proposals. But by 1916 the economic situation had changed. American loans to the Allied powers had revived international trade, and Europe was now absorbing great quantities of American products. As business increased, unemployment decreased, and as unemployment became less of a problem it became less interesting. Businessmen concentrated on expanding production and had little time to worry about the possibility of another depression. The great gap between promise and performance of the Gary committee exposed much of the misdirection of the Progressive movement in New York City. Its members, both businessmen and reformers, sincerely believed they were working in the interests of the masses, whom 43 Ibid., 104-28; Report of the Mayor's Committee on Unemployment, 70, 93-95; Times, January 11,1915; Notes for a speech, undated, John A. Kingsbury Papers, Library of Congress; Irwin Yellowitz, "The Origins of Unemployment Reform in the United States" Labor History, IX (Fall 1968), 338-60; Bryce M. Stewart, Unemployment Benefits in the United States: The Plans and Their Settings (New York, 1930), 1-19. 44 Mitchel to Childs, April 22,1915, and "Report to the Committee of 107" April 12, 1915, Mitchel Papers.