The Indianapolis times., 1934-05-15
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

.nUR reactionary and shortsighted fnanciers
~ and industrialists are drawing up their
campaign plans to wreck the new deal because
it is asserted that it embodies too much eco
nonic planning
At the same time, Lawrence Dennis contrib
utes brilliant article in the American Mercury
arguing that the new deal likely is to fail be-
cause it is well-nigh planless.
Anything which Mr.. Dennis writes deserves
the respectful attention of any serious minded
American. Few writer's on American public af-
fairs are better informed or more clear headed
We need not agree with his contentious invari-
ably, but we need to sit up and take notice Of
what he says
After listening to all the recent Bourbon
bellyaching" about the alleged RECOMMENDATION of
American economic life under the NRA let us
see what there is to be said from the side of
those who contend that the new deal is char
acterized by general absence of any we'll
thought-out plan, procedure or economic phil
osophy.
A CCORDING to Mr.. Dennis, the American
L n people trust Roosevelt because the older
policies have been discredited and not because
he or the American people really know where
they are going:
'As most of the criticism of Mr.. Roosevelts
policies comes from people who long have been
IN power and recently had their policies crush
lngy dScredlted by events, it is not strange that
the new deal should be to give it a chance with
out inquiring closely into its implications
For new political system, this type of
popular approval or acquieScence is most pc
culiar and somewhat unusual among historical
precedents. This acquiesence is not the kind
of agreement reached by the people who, hav-
ing read the federaliSt papers, created the
American Constitution, or who having read
Das Kapital' created the Soviet Union of Rus
sian Republics
There is, Of course, a certain piquancy to
the idea of a revolution by people who don't
know what they doing. But the result likely
is to be mess rather than new social system y
With capable an1iability toward Mr.. Roose-
velt, but with deadly logic, Mr.. Dennis cites
numerous examples of fundamental incon-
Sistency and contradiction in the new deal.
TOR example, General johnson fervently ex-
Il horts business to keep it's prices down, while
Professor Warren contends that prosperity can
be achieved only by raising prices. The rail-
roads are ordered to reduce operating costs with
out reducing wages, but wages constitute 10
per cent of operating cost Jesse Cones of the
RFC denounces the banks for not lending more
freely to private industry while the government
pursues a fiscal policy which makes it much
more desirable for the banks to lend to the gov
ernment than to lend to private industry.
On the one hand, there is a vigorous effort
to limit farm production, and on the other the
spending of millions of dollars to reclaim more
land on which to grow more crops The firm
nterlocking of finance and industry is ignored
in an effort to get each to reform separately and
Singly.
Mr.. Dennis argues forcefully that economic
agreement and planning must keep pace with
the program that the state hopes to execute,
and he calls attention to the dangers of pure
empircian and experimentation, however nobly
conceived.