The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-09-01
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

THE New Deal prophets and statesmen of
l. our day may derive inspiration from past
prophets of reform How true this is we'll
brought out by Miss Ida M Tarbell in an article
on New Dealers of the Seventies in the Forum
Miss Tarbell had long and honorable rec
ord a crusader for justice, having been an
eminent member of the noble band of muck
rakers who tried to infuse some idealism into
the United States at the turn of the century.
More recently she departed widely from this
role and saw fit to euogize the late Judge Garry
and Owen D. Young in biographies glowing
with fulsone praise. But the depression seems
once more to have kindled the old. fire within
her. She tells of recent experience:
stepping out of cab at the Grand Central
station in New York last winter, looked into
the eyes of boy of rs, with a decent intelligent
face Shivering in thin clothes, he solicited
clients for his shoe brush.
"It was the contrast of the boy and his back
ground which rooted me to the spot.
Behind the huge plate glass window in front
of which he stood, a gay pyramid Of baskets
piled with rare fruits and rarer sweets and be-
decked with multi-colored ribbons reared it's
brilliant and costly self. 1 knew the price of
week as many cents as the dollars the window
behind represented"
Miss Tarbell now finds her heroes no longer
in the steel trust or the public utilities game
She tells us rather of the services to humanity
and reform rendered by Henry George and Ed
ward Bellamy who tried to point the way to
better day on the heels of the great panic of
1873.
WTHILE Henry George always reflected
w quasi-pioneer perspective and never thor
oughly adjusted himself to the facts of modern
industrial capitalism-knew nothing indeed of
that finance capitalism which is the key to the
modern economic order-he did make the CEN
tury conscious Of the evils arising from the
private absorption of socially-created land
values
Even friendly critics are pretty generally
agreed that Mr.. George was far ADLER as a
courageous crusader against privilege than as
a formulator of an adequate program for the
future Few broad-m1nded commentators re-
gard his programme single tax-as an ade-
quate solution of our economic ills 1t is fine
plank rather than a whole platform.
BeLamy oy no means matched Henry George
as social critic, but he far surpassed him as a
suggestive and realistic social planner. His
Looking Backwards is one of the few sweep
ing and inspiring proposals for New Deal set
forth in the literature Of American social reform
In Mr.. Bellamys eyes there is only one way
out, namely, Supplanting the many great private
business corporations by one vast and all-inclus-
I'VE CO1 the GI6dG 1TuSt, OF the govern
ment of the United States. This is his pre-
diction
In word the people of the United States
concluded (about 1885, to assume the conduct
OF their own business just as one hundred odd
years before they had assumed the conduct of
their own government, organizing now for in
dustrial purposes on precisely the same grounds
that they had then organized for political pur-
poses.
AT last, strangely late in the worlds history,
the obvious fact was perceived that no business
is so essentially the public business as the in
dustry and commerce on which the people
livelihood depends and that to entrust it to
private persons to be managed for private
profit IS q folly similar in kind though vastly
greater in magnitude, to that of surrendering
the functions of political government to kings
and mobiles to be conducted for their personal
glorification"
In his later book Equality" Bellamy out
lined his scheme for training citizens to under
take the responsibility of administering the One
Great trust.
If private capital continues to insist upon
sabotaging the New Deal it is quite likely that
BellamyS proposals will be found to have q
practical import as well as historic interest for