Evening star., 1934-06-03
NEW DEAL CONTROL SEEN
ENEMY OF FULLER LIFE"
Human Spirit Cannot Be Free for Best
Development if Repression Exists,
Observer Says.

tanning this repressive feature. Sup
pose, in that condition, what is the
fact-namely, that some one came
along with the idea of an automobile.
To get his new idea adopted he would
have been obliged to go up and down
the country calling on the carriage
and buggy makers. No one of them
would have been free to experiment
with the automobile if the expert
ment required. as it would have re-
quired, an addition to his plant. And
the state Of mind which goes with
such a code, the feeling Of safety
against competition, would have
worked further to discourage adop-
ton of the new invention and expan-
sion of plants to manufacture the new
means of travel.
Progress Seen Slower.
In that condition, suspect, the au-
tomobile would have been long time
coming. Doubtless it would have
forced itself somehow, but the time
consumed would have been years and
perhaps decades greater than it has
been.
What actually happened In the
1905 was that some carriage manu-
facturers-not being repressed by any
code and being free to experiment and
eXpand-took on the idea of the au-
tomobile. One such carriage manu-
facturer was Studebaker-and pres
emily Studebaker was making an in
creasing number of automobiles, de-
creasing number of carriages. With
Mo- mid la
manufacture Of automobiles expanded,
manufacture of carriages and buggies
ebbed. The carriage and buggy man
ufacturers who did not have the am
bition and vision to take up the au-
tomobiles presently found their plants
shriveling to nothing The capital in
vested in carriage and buggy manu-
facture dried up and disappeared.
The N. r. A. codes of today aim to
achieve what DR.. Millikan calls a
"statism" of capital. The wish for
protection of existing capital on the
part of business now in existence goes
hand in hand with the wish of the
new dealers for the greater "statism"
of life throughout the United States.
The better principle is that capital
and also free to make losses
Last Monday morning the public
saw report to President Roosevelt
made by a committee called the
Durable Goods Industries Commit
tee," which had been appointed by
Gen. johnson to consider how to
bring about business revival. The
committee made several recommended
tions. One was "a free flow of private
capital into private business"
Now-again I say believe It or
not"-the fact is the new dealers and
the administration now in power at
Washington are determined to abolish.
to end forever. what they call the
free use Of capital" I am aware
that President Roosevelt on many oc-
caSions has begged and urged that
private capital should get busy, that
it should make use of the immense
stores of available credit which the
administration has set up. and put
| this credit to work But while Presi-
dent Roosevelt has repeatedly said
this, he has also said that the free
use OF capital in the United States
| shall no longer be. These two atti-
/ t00Co Ol1 IIlC pdIG O1 LIE HIeSlQenL
/ might conceivably be reconciled to
each other by saying that President
Roosevelt wants private capital to get
busy but wants it to get busy only
in severely limited ways. The broader
| fact, however, is that these two atti-
/ tudes of the administration are in
| consistent-and they are only one pair
of many. many queer inconsistencies
and contradictions which characterize
the new deal as a whole.
The new dealers. in their attitude
| toward the free use of capital. begin
! thus: They say that the United
! States has much larger equipment
of factories than is necessary. They
say the country's capacity for pro-
ducing goods is far out of proportion
to the country's capacity to consume
| goods. Therefore, they say, they will
permit no use of private capital to
increase the productive capacity of the
| country until such time as the exist
| ing capacity shall be unable to meet
! consumption-until such time as con-
sumption catches up with produc-
ton.
Control Is Point.
Examples occasionally cited by the
new dealers include the cement in
dustry, the steel rail industry and
the shoe industry. About the shoe
industry, for example, the new deal
ers say that there is in this country
existing machinery to make three
times as many shoes in a year as
the country uses up in year. There
fore, they say, they will prevent any
free use of private capital to set up
any new shoe-manufacturing plants
For the purpose of effecting this
control of the free use of capital the
new dealers have now set up adequate
machinery. Everybody recalls the re-
cent controversy over the stock eX-
change control bill and the securities
act. The real controversy over the
stock exchange control bill had to do.
not with the stock exchange at all,
but with that part Of the bill which
set up control over all business The
secret of the wish of the new dealers
to insert this control of general busi-
ness into the stock exchange bill was
to get a mechanism by which they
could control and check the free use
of capital.
| (Copyright, 1934)