The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-05-07
THE TIMES
Liberal Viewpoint
-Bn DIR. HARRY FINER BARNES

THE frontal attack upon the Roosevelt ad-
Il ministration by Wall Street has brought
Raymond Moley's magazine Today right around
to facing reality without the slightest evasion.
1t recognizes without evasion where the opposl-
ton to the new deal really centers.
In a forceful and singing editorial article it
writes of Wa Streets Raid on the New Deal"
The article does not question the right of any
man to oppose the etcher- Rayburn bill which
endeavors to regulate organized gambling on the
Stock Exchange. 1t only asks that opponents of
the measure shall have studied previously the
bill and formed their own opinions thereupon.
This editorial article declares that few oppon-
ents of the measure have any real first hand in
formation about its character. While they are
complaining bitterly about the proposed dicta-
torship of the government over the Stock Ex-
change, they have accepted the real and present
dictatorship of the high pressure propagandists
who are battling the new deal. AS the writer of
this article points out:
There is no more serious consideration in
this drive than the fact that 95 per cent of those
who are registering opinions on the bill are not
basing them on what the bill is, but upon what
somebody told them about the bill.
"THIS is a distinction of the greatest i'm
Il p~ortance. Thousands of business men.
bankers and others slaviShly have registered
opinions they did not create for themselves, con-
corning a measure which they have not seen;
they are predicting effects that might result
from this bill that they have no right whatso-
ever to predict because they have not examined
the facts"
The story of the definite advances in this
aStute propaganda against both the Fletcher
Rayburn bill and the new deal is one of the most
amazing and Illuminating tales in American his
tory.
When the President sent the bill to congress
early in February, Stock Exchange regulation
was supported almost unanimously by the opin-
ion of the country. A careful search of editor
ials in all the papers in the 1874 cities of more
than $4,000 inhabitants revealed scarcely a dis
senting editorial on the subject.
Then began the campaign of Wall Street.
On Feb. 10, Mr.. Whitney, president of the
New York Stock Exchange, called together the
representatives of the thirty principal wire
houses" and set forth his objections to the
Fletcher-Rayburn bill. A call to action was sent
to the branches of these thirty houses located in
all the important cities of the country.
NN Feb. Is a letter was sent to all members
" of the New York Stock Exchange and to
the presidents of eighty companies whose stocks
were listed on the exchange. This time Mr..
Whitney alleged that the federal trade commits
sion was given power by the bill to manage"
the corporations of America.
Then, on Feb. e, appearing in Washington
before the senate banking and currency commit
tee, he alleged that the bill gave the federal trade
commission absolute power" over every corpora
ton whose securities were listed on the New
York Stock Exchange and suggested that the
bill probably was written with the aim of nation
alizing American industry and business.
At the same time, brokerage employees
throughout the country were being frightened
by the assertion that if the bill passed a great
many of them would be thrown out of their jobs.
Even college professors we're deluged with propa-
ganda.
Then, on March %, the final bomb shell was
exploded by James R. Rand Jr, when he sprung
the Writ DOGGY alleging that the new deal was
a conscious effort to turn the country over to the
social economic program Of Moscow.
BY the end of March many American news
papers had so reversed their opinion that they
were expressing vehement opposition to Stock
Exchange regulation. The Miami Herald, which
once had been sympathetic with regulation,
wrote in an editorial on March %:
IF stocks are held down by the damper of
margins, so will prices of grain and cotton be
kept low in the pit, and they influence com
modify prices generally. In other words, the ma
ton prospers through gambling. This may not
be morally right, but nevertheless it is a fact"
Before we subscribe to this theory of pros
perity through gambling, let us go back and read
once more the record of the closing days of Oc-
tober, 1929.