The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-05-08
phone-RIley 1851
MONDAY. MAY 8. 1881.
THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS


age. Sunday night he resisted the
temptation to boast of his achievements and
to make big promises for the future As for
the remarkable record of the last two months
he simply recounted the facts and let them
speak for themselves
He even went to the extent of warning
the country against overconfidence, saying:
Industry has picked up railroads are car
rying more freight, farm prices are better
but 1 am not going to indulge in issuing
proclamations Of overenthusiastic assurance.
We can not ballyhoo ourselves back to pros
perity."
Here is the answer to those who are afraid
that the President is losing his head about
this initiation business Unlike the cure-al
mutations, he is not having pipe dreams He
said definitely that we will stop initiation at
the point where debtors can pay back at
prices they borrowed that is an honest dol
lar.
He said definitely that gold is a good basis
for currency and that is why he decided
not to let any of the gold now in the country
go out of it." With the notion that extreme
initiation as such can bring prosperity the
President has no traffic.
Instead, he soberly turned to the bigger
job yet to be done. return to an honest
dollar and to the type of prosperity we had
before the crash is not enough That kind
of so-called prosperity was the cause of the
depression. Hence the Presidents warning:
Il do not want the people to believe that
because of unjustified optimism we can re-
sumo the ruinous practice of increasing our
crop output and our factory output in the hope
that a kind Providence will find buyers at
high prices.
Such course may bring us immediate and
false prosperity, but it will be the kind of
prosperity that will lead us into another tail
spin"
AS an alternative, the President proposed
national economic planning-not a govern
ment dictatorship over industry, but rather
a partnership in planning and partnership
to see that the plans carried out"
From his address Sunday night as from
his Thursday speech to the United States
Chamber of Commerce, it is clear that the
President considers one issue more important
than any other in. this depression one reform
more necessary than any other. That is the
need for the government to help industry to
achieve a basis of order; permitting planned
production, eliminating unfair competition by
pirates and sweatShops; abolishing child labor,
apportioning shorter hours and higher wages.
This goal has many names-sustained pur-
chasing power, mass market, justice for labor,
redistribution of wealth-but whatever the
name it is the common goal of economists and
the Wisest business leaders who see that pros
perity is not possible with low wages and con-
centration of wealth.
The President pledged a governmental
measure Ito give to the industrial workers of
the country more fair wage return, prevent
cut-throat competition and unduly long hours
for labor, and at the same time to encourage
each industry to prevent overproduction."
Industry has proved that it can not bring
this reform working alone. For example, the
President cited the cotton goods industry, in
which perhaps 80 per cent of the manufac-
turers would agree to eliminate starvation
wages, long hours child labor and overpro-
duction, but would be powerless to act because
of the unfair competition of 10 per cent.
The President is going to smash that sys-
tenn, which once paraded under the title of
rugged individualism but is now unmasked as
chaos and national suicide
Mr. Roosevelt's declaration of national
economic planning follows:
Government ought to have the right, and
will have the right, after surveying and plan
ming for industry, to prevent with assist
ance of the overwhelming majority of that
industry unfair practice and to enforce this
agreement by the authority of government
THE so-called antitrust laws were in
tended to prevent the creation of monopolies
and to forbid unreasonable profits to those
monopolies. That purpose of the antitrust
laws must be continued but these laws never
were intended to encourage the kind of unfair
competition that results in long hours, Starva-
ton wages and overproduction."
We shall not be as modest as the President
regarding his program We believe it is safe
to predict not only return to prosperity. but
to a better prosperity, if the Roosevelt foreign
policy is accepted abroad and if at home the
President receives the full cooperation of con-
gress, industry and labor in his pledge for
government enforcement of economic plan
ming.