Evening star., 1933-02-26

other has borne since Abraham
Lincoln. But it is no exaggerat1on to
say that Franklin D. Roosevelt has been
more beset by the problems Of the
presidency in advance of his entering
the White House than any other Presi-
dent-elect including even Lincoln.
Presidents-elect generally have been
permitted to retire behind the scenes
and remain out of the public view.
Lincoln sat aloof and silent in his
then remote Illinois home town
throughout the mad Winter after his
election, while the Union was falling
to pieces, while Congress was in a
panic and the business of the Nation
was paralyzed by fear. To the clam
orous demands that he do something
or say something to stay the swift
tide of Southern secession he turned
deaf ear and persistently refused
to be hurried into assuming any re-
spoisibility until he should be invested
with the power to act.
Kept Himself Free.
Breaking silence. at last. only when
he was on the way to his inauguration,
he explained that he had kept him
self uncommitted and free in order
that he might shape the policy of his
administration to the rapidly chang
ing situation. We may wonder how he
would have met an invitation to confer
with President Buchanan three months
and more before he could take the
helm in that storm.
Contrary to all precedent. the many
grave problems to which the next ad-
ministration will fall heir did not wait
for Mr.. Roosevelt on the White House
doorstep They have pursued him
throughout the Winter. The returns
of the voting hardly were in when
demand arose that he Immediately Sc
lect and announce the key men of his
administration the Secretaries of State
and of the Treasury. Four days after
the election he was publicly summoned
by President Hoover into a conference
on what would be key policy of his
Government, the settlement of foreign
debts
With no little difficulty and at the
cost of much misunderstanding, Mr..
Roosevelt persisted in retaining his
freedom of action on the debts But, in
the end. he had to take the subject into
his own hands, before he had a Secre-
tary Of State to advise him. and We
saw. when the British Ambassador flew
to Warm Springs, the unprecedented
spectacle of President-elect receiving
a foreign envoy.
Meanwhile, the Manchurian question
also had to be carried to him by the
Secretary of State in the Hoover cab
met, and he was under the necessity
OF deciding before the world the course
of his administration in the Orient.
Moreover, the first White House con-
ference to which Mr.. Roosevelt was
volved him in problems of foreign
policy, but also in the usual demoralized
situation Of lame duck Congress.
Slender Chances for Plan.
Democratic leaders seem to have
given the President ELECT the assurance
or the hope that much of his legisla-
tive program could be pushed through
in the always crowded short session
With the Democrats barely controlling
the House, the Republicans controlling
the Senate organization and President |
Hoover holding the power of veto, it |
was slender chance at best.
But the President-elect was tempted |
to risk it for the sake of averting an
extra session of his own Congress at |
the outset Of his administration. His
plan so far has met only with disap- |
pointments. Unless it fares better in
the remainder of the session, the net |
result of his venture in Washington
will not be helpful to the prestige of
his leadership.
Happily, no one in the future will
be under the pressure Mr. Roosevelt |
has been to accept responsibility before |
he has power-to make bricks without
straw The twentieth amendment will
not only more promptly invest a new
President with the authority of his Of
flee: the outgoing President will be
spared the humiliation of having a ses-
sion OF the outgoing Congress on his
helpless hands and will have less oc-
casion to summon his successor to a
White House conference.
More problems have pressed upon
Mr.. Roosevelt than upon any other
President-elect because we are asking
more OF cur Government now than we
ever asked before
The new administration is expected,
within its first months, to balance a
budget that has been out of balance
for several years; to abolish consolidate
and reorganize the vast administrative
machinery that has resisted reform ever
since the Civil War; to cut 25 per cent
OIL costs that have been running wild
and unchecked: to make a new settle
ment OF the foreign debts and start the
removal OF barriers that shell-Shocked
nations have been frantically piling up
in the channels of international trade
since the armistice.
Expected to be Providence.
In addition to that huge lob of set
ting its own house in order. the Gov
ernment is expected also to be special
Providence for the relief of the farmers,
the railroads. the mortgaged farms and
homes, and the credit system of the
business world. Now, this represents
something new and strange in the at
t1tude OF the American people toward
their political institutions, and we
should prepare ourselves for possible
shocks of disappointment.
While We have always blamed a
President for bad times. We never until
now really expected him to do anything
about 1t. and he did nothing. After
Henry Clay had eloquently laid upon
President Jackson the responsibility for
depression and tearfully jmplored
Vice President Van Buren to intercede
with Jackson to save the country, Van
Buren, ridiculed the performance by
airilv sauntering down to the seat of
the Senator end asking him for pinch
OF his fine maccaboy snuff.
In the midst of the severe hard times
that lowered upon the Grant admins
tration the presidential election of 1876
was held, but neither party proposed in
any plank of its platform that the
Government should intervene. Presi-
dent Cleveland is said to have brought
his pudgy fist down upon a table in
the depth of the depression that beset
his second administration and groaned
In c-spair, I'm damned if I know what
to do And he did nothing, outside
the strictly governmental function of
maintaining the gold reserve in the
Treasury and of putting down the Chi
cago labor strike with Federal troops.
The country worked out its own saliva
tion then without help from Washing
ton. as 1t had on every like occasion
before.
But already new party had arisen
in 1892 with political philosophy new
to us, and in the 40 years since the
| Populists stood alone in sponsoring it.
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