Evening star., 1932-09-24


These people. he considered had two
sets of rights, those Of personal COM
potency and those involved in acquir-
ing and possessing property. BY per-
sonal competency he meant the right
of free thinking, freedom of forming
and expressing opinions, and freedom
Of personal living, each man according
to his own lights. To insure the first
set of rights, government must SO
order its functions as not to interfere
with the individual. But even Jefferson
realized that the exercise of the prop
erty rights might so interfere with the
rights of the individual that the gov
ernment, without whose assistance the
property rights could not exist. must
intervene, not to destroy individualism
but to protect it.
you are familiar with the great
political duel which followed, and how
Hamilton, and his friends, building to-
ward a dominant centralized power,
were at length defeated in the great
election of 1900 by Mr.. Jeffersons party.
Out of that duel came the two parties,
Republican and Democratic, as we know
them today.
The New Day Begins.
$50 began, in American political life,
the new day, the day of the individual
against the system, the day In which
individualism was made the great
watchword of American life. The hap
piest of economic conditions made that
day long and splendid. On the West
ern frontier land was substantially
free. No one who did not shlrk the
task of earning living was entlrely
without opportunity to 90 so. Depres-
sions could, and did, come and 60, but
they could not alter the fundamental
| fact that most of the people lived
partly by selling their labor and partly
| by extracting their livelihood from the
soil, SO that starvation and dlSlocatlon
were practically impossible.
AT the very worst there was always
the possibility OF climbing into Gov
cred wagon and moving West, where
the untitled prairieS afforded q haven
for men to whom the East did not
provide a place. So great were our
natural resources that We could offer
this relief not only to our own people
but to the distressed of all the world;
we could invite immigration from Eu-
rope, and welcome it with open arms.
Traditionally, when a depression came
a new section OF land was opened in
the West, and even our temporary mis-
fortune served ollr manifest destiny
1T was in the middle of the nine
teenth century that a new force was
released and a new dream created. The
force was what is called the indus
trial revolution, the advance of steam
and machinery and the rise OF the fore
runners of the modern industrial plant
The dream was the dream OF an eco
nomic machine, able to raise the stand
ard of living for every one; to bring
luxury within the reach of the hum
blest, to annihilate distance by steam
power and later by electricity, and to
release every one from the drudgery of
the heaviest manual toll. 1t was to
be expected that this would necessarily
affect government. Heretofore, govern
ment had merely been called upon to
produce conditions within which people
could live happily, labor peacefully, and
rest secure. Now it was called upon
to aid in the conSummation Of this
new dream There was, however. a
shadow over the dream. To be made
real it required use of the talents OF
men of tremendous will and tremen-
dous ambition, since by no other force
could the problems of financing and
engineering and new developments be
brought to a consummation.
so manifest were the advantages OF
the machine age, however, that the
United States fearlessly cheerfully, and,
I think, rightly, accepted the bitter with
the sweet. 1t was thought that no
price was too high to pay for the ad-
i vantages which we could draw from a
finished industrial system. The his
tory of the last half century is accord
ingly in large measure a history of a
group Of financial titans, whose meth
DDS were not scrutinized with too much
care, and who were honored in pro-
portion as they produced the results,
irrespective of the means they used.
The financiers who pushed the rail-
roads to the Pacific were always ruth
less. often wasteful. and frequently cor
rupt; but they did build railroads, and
We have them today. 1t has been esti-
mated that the American investor paid
for the American railway system more
than three times over in the process,
but, despite this fact, the net advan-
tage was to the United States. AS long
as we had free land. as long as popu
lation was growing by leaps and
bounds. as long as our industrial plants
were insufficient to supply our own
needs, society chose to give the ambi-
tious man free play and unlimited re-
ward. provided only that he produced
the economic plant so much desired.
Imposition Of the Tariff.
During this period Of expansion,
there was equal opportunity for all and
the business of Government was not
to interfere but to assist in the develop
ment of industry. This was done at the
request of business men themselves.
The tariff was originally imposed for
the purpose of fostering our infant
industry a phrase I think the older
among you will remember as political
issue not so long ago. The railroads
were subsidized, sometimes by grants
of money. oftener bv grants of land;
some of the most valuable oil lands in
the United States were granted to as
sist the financing of the railroad which
pushed through the Southwest.
"a nascent merchant marine was
assisted by grants of money, or by mail
subsidies, SO that our steam shipping
might ply the seven seas Some of my
friends tell me that they do not want
the Government in business. With this
I agree; but I wonder whether they
realize the implications of the past.
For while it has been American doc
trine that the Government must not
go into business in competition with
private enterprises. still it has been
| traditional particularly in Republican
administrations for business urgently to
ask the Government to put at private
disposal all kinds of Government as
sistance.
THE same man who tells you that he
does not want to see the Government
interfere in business-and he means
it. and has plenty of good reasons for
saying so-is the first to go to Wash
ington and ask the Government for
prohibitive tariff on his product When
| things get just bad enough-as they
did two years ago-he will go with
equal speed to the United States Gov-
ernment and ask for loan; and the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation is
the outcome of it.
Each group has sought protection
from the Government for its own spe-
cial interests, without realizing that the
function of Government must be to
favor no small group at the expense of
its duty to protect the rights of per-
sonal freedom and of private property
of all its citizens