The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-10-12

repay his debt, sensible bushes.
man will not borrow and prudent
investor will not lend.
Thus far the administration ha:
gone to great lengths to make il
possible to feed enterprise with
capital funds. But as to enterprise
itself, which is the active ingredi-
ent in, the mixture, the adminiStra-
ton is clearly under the influence
of divided and conflicting senti-
ments.
It would like to see business as
enterprising as it was about 1926
a time when business was good but
the excuses of the boom had not
yet developed. On the other hand
it is afraid of the evils of lively en-
terprise. 1t is committed to finding
remedies for the social injustices OF
capitalist prosperity.
1t would like to produce the pleas
ant aspects of the Coolidge era
without the sinister consequences
1t is confronted with the fundamen-
tai problem of combining recovery
with reconstruction.
THUS the administration finds
Il itself, on the one hand, making
it technically possible to create a
credit imitation surprising anything
known in the Coolidge era and, on
the other hand, threatening those
who use credit and direct its flow
with dire penalties not only for
misbehavior but for negligence,
with drastic taxation of potential
profits, with severe regulation of all
kinds of corporate enterprise.
1t has been encouraging the ex-
pansion of capital and discouraging
the enterprise which would use that
capital
Now, it is easy enough to say
that the administration is on the
horns of a dilemma and that it must
make a decisive choice. There are
those who would say that the OBJ
viouS choice is to postpone, prefer
ably to scrap, the ideal Of recon-
struction, adopt the orthodox meas
ureS for restoring confidence among
business men and investors, and let
enterprise have its head.
My own conviction is that those
who take this view miSjudge the
temper of the people. But it also
is true that another kind of conf
Caence needs to be restored-the
confidence of the mass of people in
the justice, the efficiency and the
social responsibility of Democratic
institutions. Mr.. Roosevelt can
not betray the hopes symbolized by
the new deal.
To do that would be to SOW
dragons teeth of establishment
and cynicism for the future, once
the business cycle had turned down
again after a period of revival. For
the new deal is supreme test of
the power of men to control COM
petitive acquisitiveness under a Sys-
tenn of ordered liberty. Whatever the
momentary temptation to abandon
it, we must not
Yet the opposite course, which is
to install the new deal and let
recovery wait, is equally to be re-
jected. Those who in the back of
their heads would like to do this
also misjudged the temper of the
people. They fail to see that in
ability to produce substantial evil
dence of recovery will produce a
reaction, not in favor of, but
against the principles of the new
deal. Only the very naive progress
Sive can imagine that this reaction
would promote the ideas that the
most advanced progressives desire.
XXTWHERE, then, are we to find
w the way to reconcile the
short-term objective of recovery and
the long-term objective of recon-
struction? We can find it only in
the principle which has been, be-
heve, the essential reason for Mr..
Roosevelt'S immense success. From
the day he took Office he began to
govern. In a series of sharp and
decisive acts he convinced the whole
people that the government was
master in its own house as against
all lobbies, n1inorities, factions and
vested interests.
The astounding change of public
sentiment was not brought about
by any one measure, but by the
evidence that the government was
both well-intentioned and strong.
Men trusted Mr.. Roosevelt to ex-
pertinent because they saw that he
had the situation in hand.
By keeping continually vivid the
conviction that he has the situa-
ton in hand, he can work his way
through the dilemmas and contra
dictions of his dual task. What,
for example, is the origin of the
fear that is paralyzing enterprise
when business men and investors
contemplate the implications of the
NRA, the penalties of the Securi-
ties Act or the possibilities of in
fation?
1t is the fear that the President
Will lose control OF the situation
and be carried no one knows where
That is the fear. Enlightened men
must know that the basic concep-
lions Of the NRA represent neces-
sary evolution of modern industrial
ism. But they know also that the
working out of that evolution calls
for long adjustment and contriv-
ance and compromise which can be
carried out successfully only if all
the interests concerned are stadied
and Gained by a firm assertion Of
the national power.
So also they know that the Sc
curitieS act is a necessary begin
ming in the effort to make finance
more responsible. The objections to
the act arise from fear as to how
certain of the liabilities might be
interpreted in a general atmosphere
OF yindictiyeness.