Evening star., 1934-12-31
RIGHT TENDENCY
TERMED A MASK
Basic Left Principles Held
Hidden in Making Re-
form PaIatable.
BY WILLIAM 7. COBB.
(Cambridge Associates Staff

ASSOCidlcS otdAb
Slowly, reluctantly, giving way now
here and now there, the Roosevelt ad-
mipistration has made the much
pleaded for, much advertised Turn to
the Right" in the past six months.
And yet this very trend is, paradox
cally enough, an admission of perma-
nent turn to the Left in the course of
business affairs. For to concede that
the policy of Government has played
and will play determining part in the
prosperity Of business, dominating
role never previously conceived in this
Nation of rampant, lusty industrial
growth, is to concede that Government
is in and over business-and to stay.
Question Of Tactics.
Indeed, the very efforts that have
been made to make recovery and re-
form efforts more palatable to business
in the last half year are largely Ques-
ton Of tactics to make the basic prin-
ciples more popular. If the Govern
ment has taken less pro-labor course
in recent labor disputes, for instance,
1t has been largely to make the very
idea of Government intervention in
some degree acceptable to the business
men involved. And it is this prin-
ciple which in many instances has re-
manned unsmirched by compromise;
yet at the same time it is this method
Of administration which is gradually
winning over a large section of busi-
vii 70 ~
nor to the Democratic party, but to a
half dozen or so basic ideas. Contrary
to the hysterical harangues of the Tory
soapboxer, these new ideas which have
emerged-and not entirely from the
administration or its advisers either
are not socialistic, but are held by pro-
gressive industrialists to be the proper
method Of conducting industry during
the twentieth century in the United
States.
Out Of the welter of new thought,
new action and New Deal which has
constituted the American business pic
ture for 1884, these ideas are beginning
to take shape in recognizable form.
It is by first recognizing them for what
they are, and then appraising them
for what they are worth, that we may
discern the rough outline of the future,
the pattern of 1885. And this is pos
sible because of the tremendous domi-
nance Of Government.
Points to Utilities.
First, because at the moment most
In the public eye, we may take the
utility question. However much the
issue may be obscured, the plan for
the future is very definite and very
clearly outlined. It contemplates a
series Of measuring rods throughout
the country, the purpose of which is
not to supplant private ownership of
utilities with publicly-owned and oper-
ated plants throughout the country,
but to furnish an accurate yardstick
with which to measure utility rates
throughout the Nation. What should
be understood is that this technique
is not opposed to the regulation idea,
but supplementary to it. In other
words, the experience of the past, crys-
tallized In the present administration s
program, does not contemplate replac-
ing privately-owned public utilities
with those of the Federal Government
on any but q relatively minor scale
It does contemplate keeping utility
rates down by showing what electric
ity can be actually furnished for in
terms of cents per kilowatt hour.
Recent activities toward municipal
ownership in large cities, notably In
New York, constitute a threatening
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