The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-06-30


BY Harry Elmer Phi. D., the achieve
ments and outlook of the New Deal after
of operation.
NTOW that congress has adjourned and the
' New Deal has been in operation for a
year, it may not be premature to estimate its
character, achievements and prospects of sue
cess
In the first place, it is crystal clear that Pres
dent Roosevelt's aim is to save and rehabilitate
the capitalistic system. Not since the Red DOGGY
at the close OF the World war has t ere been
any more transparent nonsense than the charge
that Mr. Roosevelt Slyly and adroity is laying
the basis for a sinister revolution designed to
overthrow the political and economic founda-
tons Of our American system.
The flnanciers and business men in the
United States who now opposing Mr.. Roose-
welt so bitterly exhibit perhaps the prime stupid
lty OF all historic record in not recognizing Mr..
Roosevelt as their fair-haired boy" and stand
ing behind him even more Loyalty than they did
behind woodrow Wilson in 1917-1918. The de-
preston is more of threat to American society
than the kaiser ever thought of being
If the responsible leaders of American cap
ltaIlsm could get any sane perspective or form
any contact with economic reality, they would
grasp at Mr.. Roosevelt as drowning man seizes
a straw
Instead, our American Bourbons seem to
nave taken as their patron saint Marie Antoi-
nette. In 1776 the great French statesman TIr-
got proposed series of reforms which would
nave saved France from any revolution in the
eighteenth century and perhaps have averted
one in the nineteenth.
But Marie and her court favorites lust
Couldn't be bothered with reforms which threat
ened to cut down the appropriations for their
pleasures. Therefore, she induced the king to
throw out Turgot AS a result, the king mounted
the ScanoId on the gray morning of Jan q
1893, and offered his neck to the guilIotine
4hlS beautiful queen followed him on Oct L.
NTRONG-HEADED as the conservative op-
w position to Mr.. Roosevelt may be. we shall
get nowhere, however, simply by accusing them
Of natural cussedness
Few OF the opposition actually are feeble
minded and their seemingly demented conduct
only can be attributed fairly to the fact that
they do not see clearly just where we stand in
American industrial civilization today
The reactionaries honestly and sincerely be-
lieve that the depression of 1929 and thereafter
is merely temporary and trivial furry on the
calm eXpanse of permanent and impregnable
American prosperity They really expect that
the golden age of the "do-nothing" Presidents
following 1921 will return again and with even
added bountieS.
Pointing to the bogus campaign boom of
August, 1882, bolstered up by the Republicans,
and to the marked improvement after March,
1888 which was due to the hope of the country
in the new administration, these men contend
with more earnestness than intelligence that we
were on the right road to complete recovery
under Mr.. Hoover.
A PPARENTLY they believe honestly that the
N New Deal simply put crimp in the nat
ural and spontaneous return of prosperity and
now stands as nasty barrier to the full reali-
zation of economic well-being.
Any such attitude is, of course, as dangerous
as it is fatuous We have no dogmatic certainty
hot IF
capitalism, even by the most heroic efforts and
the most carefully thought out attempt at social
planning. ANY such illusion as the assurance
that we will just naturally bound back into
new Jerusalem era is the most rarifled type of
wishful thinking which blssfully ignores the
relevant facts in the picture.
The conservative wing which still controlled
the American economic order puts its trust in
So-called business CYCLE myth which has been
elaborated by accommodating economists as an
alibi for the avarce, folly and gambling specula
ton of the past.
The business cycle assumes that the great
depressons all have been necessary and that
they are bound to be followed by the humming
of factory wheels and the bombardment of bank
windows with bags of gold.
Honest economic historians have poked this
nonsense full of holes and have shown that we
never have pulled out of past depresSions except
as the result of special circumstances such as
striking new industrial developments, crop fail
ures abroad, spurts of population growth and
the like The facts are all assembled with great
clarity in Forest Davis What Price Wall
Street."
None of the things which has given us the
boost out of depressions in the past seems to
lie ahead of us.
In the future, we must rely upon our intel
ligence rather than good-luck or the grace of
God The Coolidge era is just as dead as the
age of Daniel Webster.