Evening star., 1934-04-22
TUGWELL DEFENDS
TRIAL METHODS
Tells Editors New Deal Is a
Return to Dem0C-
raCy.
Continued From First Page.)

for regimentation in American life
YOU will find your best illustrations in
industry"
More difficulty is being found in
Kidding industry of RECOMMENDATION
than in Kidding the country of prohi-
bition, Tugwell said, but when thou
sands of Americans are working to-
gether in a business enterprise
things will not run smoothly unless
that enterprise bases its operation on
free and full consent throughout the
organization, rather than on economic
coercion or arbitrary management"
Tugwell said a restatement of the
fundamentals of that AmericaniSm to
which we are born and which we all
desire to cherish" was appropriate,
mot because my own motives have
lately been questioned by those who
consider themselves and the country
to have been injured by the PreSi-
dents program but because it had
been made to appear that what the
administration was doing was some
how alien to our traditions and in
StitutionS."
Ingenuity Held Salvation.
The core" OF the American ira
dition he defined as "a kind of de-
fiance to fate" under which coercion
will not work Also, we have a
precious inventiveneSS which gets us
out OF holes" and saving irrever-
ence of authority"
Law, government and social organ
ization will inevitably fail, TugWell
said, unless these characteristics are
taken into account and lin this re-
Spect l unhesitatingly avow myself a
through conservative"
Il do not believe that people can be
compelled to do for long anything
that is alien to their national char
aCter. and l do not believe that there
are any safe compulSions which may
be used on human nature" he added.
Social change in America cannot go
on any faster than the people who
are affected want it to go on"
The mechanism of resistance to
such change is almost too perfect. :"
TugWel declared. Those who re-
sisted brought about complete COL
lapse in 1929 and prevented any
change for some three years. Now
that some of the necessary measures
have at last been taken and some
recovery has been assured, the forces
OF reaction are again in full cry.
Believer in Democracy.
Seven years ago I visited Russia
for two months. That visit has often
been considered sufficient proof of my
adherence to communism as though
communism could be caught by con-
tagion, like mumps or measles.
Il suppose there does not exist in
the whole country today more con-
vinced believer in the democratic
process than I am But 1 happen to
be really interested in it's survival
and eager to adapt it to the modern
world so that it can survive.
For this, something more than
windy eulogies to liberty is necessary.
Democracy has been living a pre-
carious life among our business in
stitutions; its enemies in this country
were in fair way to have it strangled
and laid quietly aside, until the new
deal came along. For they did not
realize that real democracy cannot be
destroyed without provoking a revolt
on the part of its practitioners"
The most vigorous objections to the
administrations experimenting have
come from industrialists and finan-
ciers, Tugwell declared, because for
the first time they have been made
the subjects of it."
Advocates Trials.
What is needed, he said. sis to try
new devices from the public side, to
adopt them if they succeed or reject
them if they fail. = The price we
paid tor free experimentation in in
dustry was too high to be toler-
able.
The two essential features, then,
of the Rooseveltian method are the
modernized democratic processes
which it fosters and the experimental
nature of its approach to and its
handling of problems. 1t can work if
democracy is workable and if expert
mentS can really be carried on"
Addressing the editors as men who
influence public opinion, he defined
free press as one which gives "a
fair and objective representation of
the facts, regardless of bias in favor
of any dogma, tradition or authority"
Il do not presume to suggest that
American newspapers have ever in
the past been used to promote a
private interest or to obstruct a pub
lie one. but I do plead with you, as
exponents of freedom of speech. to
ask yourselves whether democracy
and experimentation are not the only
practical means for overcoming the
present evils with which the country
is beset."
Sees Threat to Freedom.
The real threat to freedom of the
press, he added comes from those
who would create conditions which
require violent correctives. No mat
ter what those conditions are, wheth-
er war. or social upheavalS at home,
or even the rise of one of those mill
tant nationalist movements with
which the world has had too much
experience lately-those are the real
threats to that freedom which we re-
gard as precious.
THE democratic process or the
experimental method will never
threaten the real freedom of the
press That would be a contradiction
in terms, for neither can succeed
without the fullest and freest discus
sion of every proposal. There is no
other way in which the necessary
foundation of public consent can be
built"
The base of the new deal, he said,
"has to be as broad as the economy
which has to be brought under con-
troll and as deep as the minds and
hearts Of the people whom it af-
fects.
Those of us who desire to return
to the true tradition of our people,
who really hold that there ought to
be equal opportunity, and who think
that any American is too good to
starve, are taunted with the empty
shibboleths of an era which was
destroyed by those who now 60 back
to it for words
paners Reach Pponle