Evening star., 1934-05-06
ROOSEVELTS RAILROAD
PAY STAND CONSERVATIVE
Presidents Readiness to Adopt New
Ideas, However, Creates Conflicts
in Relief Programs.

| vailing In the direction of pretty eX-
treme radicalism? The answer lies
in trait Of Mr.. Roosevelts tempera-
ment; partly it lies in the condition
in which he found the country when
| he came into the presidency. The
country was PROSTATE. literally every
! bank in the country was closed. There
was need for any and every instru-
ment that promised relief-and there
was not time to ponder whether all
the instruments were consistent with
each other. Mr.. Roosevelt was per-
fectly candid about 1t at the time
for bold experimentation" and that
he would try one method after an
other, on the method of trial and
error.
1t was no wonder, in short, that
the emergency remedies of those early
weeks should in many instances have
no consistency with each other. But
now we are not only acting for an
emergency. We are getting ''set" for
new period of normal conditions.
The difficulty is 1t IS now proposed
to keep some of the emergency poll
cies and institutions. And the princi-
Piles and institutions for a normal
period must be consistent with each
order; they must make harmonious
pattern; they must make sense"
What is now needed, therefore, and
what is now being begun-I am not
certain it will be flnished-is an ef-
fort to sift the emergency and tenn
porary from the permanent and nor
NAL. The attempt, If carried out.
must eliminate som innovations and
practices which so far have been re-
garded as important.
Receptive to New Ideas.
A reason for many of the incon-
sistences of principle at Washington
is a quality in Mr. Roosevelt which
may be described as a quick recep-
tivity to new ideas. In talking with
callers, one of his most frequent COM
biEations of gesture and words is to
nod his head vigorously, smile appre-
ciatively, and say, That's an ideal"
The consequence is that one of the
intellectuals, for example. brings the
President an idea and the President
adopts it. Within the next hour con-
servative Mr.. Lewis Douglas, director
of the budget, may bring the PreSi-
dent an idea, which, when in opera
ton, might run in the opposite direc-
ton, and the President adopts that.
Naturally this contrasting two and
many other contrasting twoS, fail to
make a consistent pattern. The num-
ber of ideas that are pressed upon a
President, especially in a time of
crisis such as the beginning of his
administration. is enormous. Every
body, anywhere in the country, who
has new idea, wants to lay it before
the President. 1t was as true in Mr..
Hoover's administration, during the
depression, as in Mr.. Roosevelt's And
since nearly everybody knows an ac-
commodating Senator or Representa-
tive, or can now get access to some
minor new dealer, the result is good
many novel ideas find their way to
the Presidents desk. As the sagacious
and humorous Mr. William Hard
puts it:
Virtually everybody in any city,
hamlet or farmstead, anywhere among
us. who has had a vigorous burning
idea. has been allowed to come down
to Washington and set the Potomac
afire with it or burn his fingers with
it. The new deal has brought
them to Washington and. as it we're,
has put them under furnaces to find
out if there is any actual useful heat
in them and if they can make any
wheels actually useful go around"
All this, think Mr.. Roosevelt has
come to realize. After year and two |
months he is I suspect. rather fed |.
up" with new ideas, and rather con-
vinced of the impracticability of
ninety-one out Of a hundred of them
A budding distaste for new ideas was
the cause of his allusion in a recent |
speech, to disrelish for 'panaceas."
A Presidents Time.
Mr.. Roosevelt has come to recog-
nize another condition. He, like other
Presidents, to greater degree than
most other Presidents, has been under |
taking to do more things than any |
human being can possibly give ade-
quate thought to. This is familiar |
condition in the White House, in
creaSingly so in recent years.
Lately Mr.. Roosevelt seems to have |
decided to be cautious about trying to !
do too much himself During March |
he devoted a whole week to the one
job of settling the strike in the auto
mobile industry. 1t was the fatigue,
mainly, resulting from that, that made
it necessary for Mr.. Roosevelt to pro-
long the vacation he took Immediately
afterward. 1t is doubtful if the Presi-
dent will again undertake personally |
the job of settling any important labor
dispute. He seems to be beginning to
see, family, certain merit in the
habit of mind President Coolidge had |
OF decentralizing things. of pushing |
matters away from the White House
rather than the way Mr.. Roosevelt
has had, so far of bringing matters
into the White House.
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