The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-06-27
TUESDAY. JUNE 81. 1888.
THE G. O. P. BOO

THE long-expected national Republican at
Il tack on the Roosevelt administration has
begun. Representative Bertrand Smell, Repub-
lican leader in the house, has opened the
Observation-Disclosures after long consultation
with the other G. O. P. generals.
Mr.. Smell objects to the new deal He says
1t costs too much government money and he
says it has set up a system of bureaucratic
dictation E. . in some respects equal to that
of Russia"
In charging that the administration has not
balanced the budget, he does not deny that it
virtually has balanced the operating budget.
But he objects to a separate extraordinary
budget covering capital expenditures.
Far from being tricky bookkeeping, as he
charges, this system Is used by most corpora
tons. The fault is not in having an emergency
budget but in the failure during fat years to
lay by a surplus for the lean years.
The blame for this rests with the Repub-
lican administrations, which reduced taxes of
the rich during prosperity and failed to build
up an emergency reserve fund, as this news
paper pointed out repeatedly during the
Mellon Hoover reign.
Emergency expenditures must be made dur
ing times of depression, even though the rev.
enues are low, as the Hoover administration
discovered with its five and half billion dollar
deficit. The chief difference is that Hoover,
Smell ct al. poured government money in from
the top-in the form of higher tariffs and
Reconstruction Finance Corporation loans to
big business-while the Roosevelt administra-
ton is seeking to put money in at the bottom
to help the little fellow and to revive business
by creating a mass purchasing power.
There no longer is room for argument as to
which is the more effective method. Three
years of the Hoover method left the depression
at its lowest level, not only depriving millions
of jobs, but wrecking companies and banks.
Three months of the Roosevelt method has
produced a strong and steady rise in business
activity and employment.
To be sure, there is no absolute guarantee
that the new deal will succeed permanently
the future may force even more fundamental
change as the price of survival. But whatever
happens to the new DEAL the old deal smashed
itself so completely that it can never be put
together again by all the Smells in the nation
There remains the G. o. P. charge that the
new deal sets up dictatorship, "in some
respects equal to that of Russia" The idea
that Bernard Baruch General Johnson, Pres
ident Hartman of the United States Chamber
of Commerce, Gerard Swope and other hackers
of the national industrial recovery act are
Bolsheviks is too funny for serious discussion.
And the notion that congress- in delegating
to the President executive powers similar to
those long exercised by American city man
ayers, has transformed our democracy into an
American Soviet indicates ignorance of affairs
either in Washington or Moscow.
But the main thing which Mr.. Smell and his
fellow Republican campaign strategists have
to learn is that the American public no longer
is frightened by the Russian bugbear. So long
as the new deal works as we'll as during the
last three months, Mr.. Smell can shout Social
ISM Communism, FaSciSm, Anarchism, or any
other rrelevancy without provoking from the
American public more than a satisfied grin.