The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-10-10

not make it clear whether the
capital market is to be run, as in
the past. by investment bankers, or
as it is at this moment, by the fed
eral government, that he does not
indicate whether he looks forward
to a general policy of economic
nationaliSm or backward to a re-
vival of relatively free trade.
There are real issues at the heart
Of all these questions, and they will
have to be decided. But as I see
it, there is, in addition to his native
caution, a controlling reason why
Mr.. Roosevelt has felt it necessary
to let the ISSUES come to him rather
than to reach out for them and
render his verdicts.
So he must have recovery and
he must have reconstruction and.
unless he is to arouse disappoint-
ment and revolt, he must set them
both going simultaneously. Now
that complexities matters. For at
innumerable visual points, the
pursuit of one of these obiec-
t1ves interferes with the achieve
ment OF the other. If he could de-
vote himself in single-minded
fashion to recovery stimulating en-
terprise, profits and confidence ac-
cording to the orthodox canons of
capitalism, there is little doubt that
employment would revive faster
and business begin to hum sooner.
But he can not be single minded.
While he is trying to stimulate
recovery he also must respond to
the conviction of the mass of the
people that the old order of things
up to 1929 needs drastic renovation.
He must give evidence that he is
installing new controls and collec-
tive standards. This diScourages
enterprise and so retards recovery.
Yet he can not say to his constit-
uency as revolutionary leaders in
Russia, Italy or Germany say to
their people; Endure patiently the
sacrifices of the present for the sake
of the glorious future. Mr.. Roose-
Velt is not revolutionary leader
He must produce the prosperity of
the old order while he builds a new
one. Thus he must shape his course
with one eye on the short obiec-
tive of recovery and the other on
the long objective of reconstruc-
ton.
THAT this produces a kind of
Il chronic dilemma has been
amply illustrated since the adjourn
ment of congress. Thus, if the only
thing the President needed to do
was to encourage an old-fashioned
business revival, it would have been
sheer folly to raise the question of
union recognition as acutely as the
NRA has raised it, or to depress an
already frightened capital market
with the threats of the securities
act, or to disrupt the paralyzed ma
chlnery of capital investment by the
Glass-Seagall bill. 1t would have
been folly with the MIRA to raise
the costs of production in advance
OF profits and an increased volume
OF demand, or to create the pro-
found uncertainty of a theoretical
speculation on the possibility of
some wholly new kind of currency.
or to open up vistas of drastic tax
alton on profits and of stringent
control of public utilities.
Obviously, these things retard re-
coVery But no less obviously, they
or things like them, have had to be
undertaken if the pledges of a new
deal were sincere. For the new deal
Enthusiastically implied a different
distribution Of income and financial
power than that which prevailed
before the crash, a much stricter
policing of private enterprise and
a far-reaching attempt to reduce
the competitive and enhance the
cooperative motives in American
life. ''-'
At almost every juncture, there
lore, decisions have had to be taken
whether to advance the new deal
at the risk of slowing up enterprise
Tor recovery, or whether to promote
enterprise and slow up the install
latlon Of the new deal.
Sometimes the administration bor
not seemed to be quite clear in its
own mind as to which of its two
projects it was working on. This
especially was evident In the earlier
stages Of the blue eagle CAMPAIGN
where the hasty stampede into
cooes was proclaimed as a maj or
measure OF recovery, when as a
matter OF fact, the NRA's contribu-
tlon to recovery is modest and
mixed in result, where its contri-
outlon to reconstruction NAV we'll
prove to be epoch-making.
1t IS only by keeping constantly
IN mind the two-fold character of
the Presidents task that one can
Iarly interpret the complexitv of
MS decisions, or understand why
one days newspapers tell us that
ms conservative" advises Il. o
those primarily interested in recov.
ery) are winning, and the next that
the radicals" ii. e., those interested
IN reconstruction are dominant
The fact is that the President has
TO achieve what both groups desire
ne mas to give each its head and
then rein it in, and somehow drive
them both abreast. This attempt
to make the best of both worlds is
not the easy way to success. and
only daring man would take it.
But for Mr.. Roosevelt there was
no other way open, given the sit
uation as ne found it, and the X
pectations Of the people who raised
him to power.
He has taken it thus far with
undaunted courage and with a prac-
teal judgment as to how to ad-
vance now toward the one objec-
tive, and now toward the other,
which one must admire increasingly
the more one appreciates the great
difficulty of the task.