Evening star., 1934-02-18
.sMORAL ELITE" PROPOSED
FOR HONEST GOVERNMENT
Necessity for Free Legislature Is Dem
onstrated i'm Airmail and War Depart
ment Scandals Just Revealed.


and which to the writer of this article
seem indispensable to a thoroughly
lust and vigorous national society.
They nevertheless contribute to such
a society a most valuable and vital
idea. 1t is that of a political party
which concerns itself, in disciplinary
manner, with the moral behavior Of
its members.
It is forbidden, for example, to
members of the Fascist party, by a
party rule, to concern themselves in
efforts to secure government con-
tracts through political influence.
Infractions of this rule may send the
guilty party member to "confno"-
disciplinary detention-on some natu-
rally charming but penalty extremely
irksome island.
Fascists Moral Elite"
An identical punishment may be
inflicted upon party members for
even smaller faults-smaller, that Is,
to u.s. A leading Fascist not long ago
was given "confino" for having specu-
lated in the stock exchange in man.
ner not criminal but inevitably dis
advantageous to many poorer people.
The general principle is that things
allowable perhaps to other citizens
are not allowable to a Fascist.
Hence MuSsolini'S edicts vigorously
controlling admissions to the Fascist
party. Fascists should be capable of
avoiding even those purely private
moral errors wrich recently led to the
deposition of one Of the Fascist
party's most powerful officials.
Fascists should be, it is thought, q
moral elite" They should give, it
is thought, a special moral momentum
to the Fascist Economic State"
Would it not be exciting if We could
see the Republican party or the
Democratic party or the new deal
group transformed-among its active
managing members-into a moral
elite? Would it not be exhilarat-
ing if we could see each Of those
elements engaged in imposing dire
discipline upon any of its members
found diverging from the straight
paths OF correct ethical conduct?
Danger Greater Today.
We should then-for Illustration
get treated to the spectacle of a
concourse of new deal authorities to
consider the cases of new deal mem
bers who voluminously in recent
months have exerted themselves in
Washington to secure War Depart
ment contracts and Federal Trade
Commission decisions and A. A. A.
marketing agreements and N. R. A.
codes through political pressure and
indirections. We should then see, or,
rather, we already would have seen,
a new deal self f-housecleaning which
again for illustration-would have
made Mr.. Collins revelations re-
garding the War Department un-
necessary.
| Washington today is in more dan
! ger from unscrupulous and unpun-
ished and undeterred self f-seekers than
it was in the day of President Hard
/ ing. This is because the policies Of
/ President Roosevelt have a broader
/ and higher and more perilous scope.
President Roosevelt is installing
among us a certain variety Of the
economic state" He is installing
among US a Government which will
| have its finger upon the bread and
butter of every business man, Of every
working man, of every farmer. Moral
/ lapseS which, in the day of Harding
or of Grant, were reprehensible but
economically negligible can today
carry disaster to every factory and
every field and every home in the
country. In political state" a
moral elite" may be luxury. In ar
economic state" it is necessity.
In the N. R. A. today we see new
deal characters in roles which are
double and morally impossible. We
see them at one moment the rulers
of an industry on behalf of "the
economic state" and at the next
moment the representatives of that
industry in the gaining of favors from
The economic state" These roles
they continue to interchange. The
interchanging will have to cease, or
the system will collapse. The man.
ayers of an economic state" must
be permanently and continuously
aloof from every private interest and
above every private personal pecuni-
| airy consideration.
bureaucracy Required
1t is as if they were the "guardians"
in Plato's ideal Republic" the
guardians" who were to dwell in a
quarter of the city by themselves In
separation from their fellow citizens
and thus be able impartially to settle
their economic contentious. An ECO
nomic state" requires indeed a bu-
reaucracy but bureaucracy in which
traditional efficiency must be preceded
and sustained by an unprecedented
morality.
Toward the creation of such q bu-
reaucracy We have not to date made
any notable progress. The abolition of
civil service in the new deal bu-
reaus of the Government is no strong
step toward our coming task of Great
ing race of super civil servants. Yet
that task is the supreme ultimate task
of the Roosevelt revolution. Its nature
must be accurately recognized. Ira
versing and transcending the economic
field, and the intellectual field. 1t
lodges itself abidingly in the moral.
A free parliament for initiation. A
moral elite for administration. A coun-
try that could combine them both
would indeed be mistress of the world.