The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-06-12

1t has been based, in part, on
remarks made at various times
by some of MIR. Roosevelt's lieu
tenants. But these would have
made no great impression had it
not been possible to make a case
by pointing to the new measures
as evidence that the administra-
ton was opposed to private en-
terprise for private profit.
Thus it was possible to take
all the tremendous powers of regi-
mentation in the agricultural act,
the tremendous powers of the
MIRA, the original securities act
and the first stock exchange bill,
and argue that the net effect was
to dry up private enterprise and
to centralize initiative in Wash
ington.
The extreme Interpretation of
these measures was that they were
designed to prevent recovery and
thus force the country in the di-
rection of state socialism.
THE other view, which is the
Il one I have subscribed to in
these columns, was that there was
no conspiracy, but that there was
confusion which produced destruc-
tive contradictions. On the one
hand, the administration was
seeking to stimulate recovery by
bringing prices into equilibrium
with costs, thus inducing profits
through the revaluation of the
dollar, through expenditures which
created new purchasing power
and, on the other hand, it was
throwing prices out of balance by
the price-fiXing provisions of the
codes, by raising labor costs be-
fore the volume Of business had
increased, and was blocking new
purchasing power by locking I'D
the private capital market through
the excessive zeal of the securities
act.
1t never has seemed to me that
these policies we're designed to
prevent recovery, though they
were in fact retarding it. I have
believed that the obstructive as
poets of NRA were the result of
an honest, widely held, but thor
oughly mistaken theory that it
was possible to achieve recovery
by restricting output and at the
same time rediStributing the in
come of industry.
AS for the original securities
act, have believed that it's punt
tive features reflected the hysteria
OF the depression, and also that il
received most of it's support in
the administration from the view.
which is characteristic of all de-
presSionS, that the country was
oVerbullt and did not really need
an active private capital market.
This Interpretation is much less
neat and logical than Mr.. Sulli-
vans doctrine of planned revolu-
Clon, but I believe it to be much
nearer to the truth.
N any event, we now have be-
Il fore us a series of acts and
decisions which go a long way
toward correcting those very meas
ureS which Mr.. Sullivan has re-
garded as steps in a deliberate
revolution and others among us as
which were retarding re-
covery and causing confusion.
We have the securities act and |
the stock exchange bill amended
Sufficiently to make it perfectly
clear whatever defects they may
still have, that they are measures
to protect the investor and not
instruments for destroying private
finance.
We have four momentous de-
clsionS in NRA. The first is the
abandonment of the licensing
clause, which takes out of the act
the ultimate power of compulsion.
The second is the decision to get
rid of the codes in the service
industries, thus removing from
the field of RECOMMENDATION those
which are local in
character and most highly COM
petitive.
The third is the decision to give !