The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-10-31
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES


IRON time to time get rather dubious con-
Il corning the prospects of the New Deal with
its inadequacies; its inconsistencies; its funda-
mental weakness in failing TO protect the con-
sumner and to guarantee mass purchasing power,
and its unwillingness to face recalcitrant CAPT.
talists squarely with the alternatives Of playing
ball or accepting state management Of industry.
Then read some Of the attacks made upon
IL by Tories who seem incapable Of grasplng the
economic realities of 1884, and I feel almost like
partisan Of the Roosevelt administration.
ogden Mills is up to his old tricks Of decIar-
ing that the depression had run its course by
the summer of 1882" and that if it had not
been for the oppressive and socalistic policies Of
Mr. Roosevelt we might be enjoying another
golden era like unto the bull market days OF
Mr. Coolidge:
1T is just as if a doctor, called into treat
patient who had just overcome the crisis Of
pneumonia but was still sick, should begin by
inoculatihg him against colds through the use OF
seruns that further upset him
TT probably is too much to suggest facts to Mr..
l. Mills, but it may be we'll to remind those in
clined to accept his doctrine that they should
consult the graphs of general business conditions,
oank failures stock prices and bond movements
from August 1892 to March, 1888.
At the most, Mr.. Roosevelt only applied the
when he was able to sit up, insisted that he
should not get his feet wet or sit in a draft be-
fore he got out Of the hospital.
ANY serums administered have been very mild
and most of them given at the earnest behest of
the patient. The main trouble has been that the
sick monk became devil just as soon as he
imagined that he was we'll
We might expect little more from a serious
book than from a campaign speech, but Ralph
Robey produces an identical argument in his
Roosevelt Versus Recovery (Harpers). He tells
us logically enough that the three possibilities
before us are capitalism, Fascism or Communism
He does not want the last two, and he assures us
that capitalism must change if it is to survive.
DUT his devotion to change" is very nebu-
- lous lip service to the word He recommends
return to the defationary policy of 1922 that
all but wrecked the country and will concede no
more regulatory changes in business than are
absolutely necessary to escape immediate col
lapse or revolution by the thinnest of margins.
He sees no hope for capitalism under the New
Deal:
eff we are to prevent national disaster we
must turn back to the tenets Of liberal capital
ism. If we are to prosper as a nation, we must
restore the requisites of a sound economic sys-
5em Our choice is between fighting tuberculo
sis in it's early stages and fighting it after
hemOrrhages begin. 1t is a choice between the
New Deal ana SOUND prosperity. IL Is 1COOSSVe1C
versus recovery"
Both Fascists and Communists will do we'll to
lend earnest aid to Mr.. Robey's economic and
political policies Nothing would more surely or
speedily land us, first in the arms of the Black
Shirts and then in the laps of the Reds.
A much more sophisticated but equally fatu-
Gus line of reasoning appears in James z. War;
burg's book, It's Up to U.s. (KnOpD. He argues
that we must choose between an indvidualism
which remains essentially rugged" and COM
pletely regimented society like that in Italy or
Russia.
The New Deal he tells us, is hopeless because
it tries to straddle and combine the two irrecon-
cilable schemes OF a planned economy and demo-
cratic capitalism We must choose between a
capitalism which throws few sops to the masses
in the way of unemployment insurance, lower
farm taxes and the like, and the system OF Rus
STA and Italy. The latter, he says, are failures
because Colonel Knox of the Chicago Daily News
has been across the water, looked them over, and
turned thumbs down on them.
'NNE may turn Mr.. Warburg's logic back on
~ him with deadly effect. If we can not yet
be sure that planned economy will work GER
tainly we know that the type OF capitalism which
Mr. Warburg envisages has already proved
pathetic failure. The face-lifting and shampoo
ing which he recommends will not change its
character operations or results.
There is no workable alternative to planned
economy The alternative is between the mod
crate, and perhaps inconsistent, program Of Mr..
Roosevelt and the sweeping and thoroughgoing
job of planning which the Fascists and Com
munists are trying. The sooner American bust
ness understands this the more likely it will be
to save us, for time at least, from FaScism and
Communism.