Evening star., 1934-05-20


senatorial campaign in Penn
Il sylvania has been, respect
fully think, considerably mis-
Understood and misinterpreted.
In the first place, a picture is set
up of Mr. Reed as mossback, an old
fogey. an ultra-conservative, a re-
dictionary, a throwback, political
pterodactyl crawling about in the vain
hope of coming to life. when in fact it
has been dead ever since the Mesozoic
Age.
A contrasting picture is then set up
OF Mr.. Pinchot as a glutton for nov
city. an admirer and swallower Of
everything just invented and an en-
thusiastic approver, therefore. of every
card in Mr.. Roosevelt's whole new
deal pack, including the jokers, if any.
Suggests prehistoric" Platform.
BY this means it is made out that
Mr.. Reeds victory over Mr.. Pinchot
is a lesson to the Republican party to
60 back to the Mesozoic Age and to
carry the country in 1886 on plat
form demanding perhaps nothing
more than bigger and better prehis-
toric ice caps and glaciers.
And by the same means, on the
other hand, it has to be made out
that the 100000 Pennsylvania Repub-
licans who voted for Mr.. Pinchot are
ardent zealots for all of Mr.. Roose-
velt's policies, whatever they may be,
either now or hereafter, and are
therefore right on their way to voting
to return him in 1886 to the White
House.
This is just about as violent and
misleading an oversimplification of
things as could well be imagined. In
these columns a week ago I pointed
out that Mr.. Reed did not attack
everything in the new deal and that
Mr.. Pinchot did not support every
thing in it. The situation-like, un-
fortunately, most human situations
was and is mixed and muddled.
Not Unsympathetic.
Mr.. Reed, in the course of his
campaign, was not unSympathetic to
the new deal aspirations for better
conditions for labor. Nor was he
unsympathetic to the new deal aspir-
ations for preventing business men
from actually cheating one another
or their customers. In fact. his one
central attack upon the new deal
was his criticism of the NJ r. A. for
actually promoting the cheating and
plundering of customers by big busi-
ness interests through price-fixing.
Now the United States Chamber of
Commerce, in its recent meeting in
Washington, though it passed many
resolutions, passed none really against
price-flxing. On the contrary, its
president, Mr. Henry l. Hartman,
most admirably public-spirited and
conscientious gentleman, spoke feel
ingly against the evils of cut
throat competition" and advocated
governmental assistance in checking
it. At the same time leading rep
resentative of the petroleum industry
spoke earnestly in favor of fixing
''quotas of sale" for all petroleum re-
fineries in interstate commerce The
tone of the whole meeting was
dominantly to the effect that control
measures over competition were de-
sirable and even necessary from the
business point of view.
Attacked Measures.
Yet it was precisely such control
measures that Mr.. Reed attacked in
the course Of his campaign in the
Pennsylvania primary How then can
his victory be said to be a justihca-
tion for choosing some big business
man to be chairman of the Republican
National Committee at the Chicago
session of that committee next
month? The moral from his victory
would in fact seem to be that the
committee should confer its chair
manship upon some audacious char
acter who would enjoy taking on a
big fight with most of the large in
dustries of the country.
Moreover, it Is to be noted that
Mr.. Reed did not get all of the votes
in the Pennsylvania primary. Mr.
Pinchot got several of them. To be
specific he got more than 43 per cent
of them. I must really assume that
the managers of the Republican
party. when they have got through
celebrating Mr.. Reeds victory, will
soberly begin to see that it might be
fine idea to pay some attention to
the views of 43 per cent of the Re
publican party's membership in one
of the most important Republican
States in the Union. In fact I freely
predict that they will not approach
1886 with the eleted notion of crash
ing through to e presidency minus
43 per cent of their followers.
Desire Newer Deal.
So it is permissible to inquire: What
sort of thing did and do the Pinchot
Republicans seem to want? From Mr.
Pinchot's speeches and also from Mrs
Pinchot's it would appear that they
want not exactly the new deal, but
fairly vague kind of newer deal
which would do more than is done
by the new deal for the common
people In a word. as I intimated
last week, they may want planning
but they want better planning.
Now the Republican party. if 1t is
to be victorious in 1886, will have
to do something-somethin salts
fy such people. In cropping toward
what it may be, we might begin by
doing little chemical analysis Of our
present mode of planning.
OF course, all planning, every
where, is difficult It is difficult even
In Russia, the classic modernistic
home of planning Not long ago the
Bolshevik party newspaper in Mos
COW. Pravda, remarked about Rus
sian planning:
Tons of paper are used for making
plans Thousands of persons partici-
pate in the making of these plans
seeking to devise the most artful COM
binations. But these plans are never
realized in life"
And Mr.. Syrtzoff, formerly presi-
dent of the Soviet of Peoples Com
missars, has very dolefully com.
mented upon planning by saying:
when we get the mare the yoke
is gone. and when we get the yoke
the mare is gone"
Double Problem.
And in Russia there are no capi.
talists to bring their desire for private
rrofit into the pure "proletariar