Evening star., 1934-05-04
Challenge to Business.

President Roosevelt, whose new deal
policies were submitted to a barrage
of hostile criticism by United States
Chamber of Commerce speakers yes
terday, bluntly told the chamber it
is time to stop crying wolf" 1t is
time, the President continued, to Co
operate in working for recovery and
for the continued elimination of evil
conditions of the past" And he added
that he confidently counted on the
loyalty and continued support of the
chamber.
Certainly the critics of the Roose-
welt policies were in full cry yester-
day. From every angle the recovery
program was under fire at the
chamber meeting. Taxes are unbear-
able, if not confscatory, according to
Silas Strawn. The public debt is
running away with the country, said
Fred H. Clausen of Wisconsin. Henry
Hart of Detroit insisted that your
politics had to be right" in order to
obtain a loan under the P. w. A.
The control of commodity exchanges
by the Government would work havoc
to farm prices, said Thomas Y. Wick
ham of Chicago, and the processing
taxes are causing a reduction in the
consumption of wheat according to
Fred j. Lingham of Lockport, N. Y.
James A. Farrell Of New York took
shot at the administration tariff bill,
declaring that unless the interested
persons were consulted ahead CT re-
ciprocal trade agreements the plan
would fail. These are only samples
of the hot shot that poured into
the new deal and its operation. The
charge was made also that through
the securities act the flow of capital
into business had been disastrously
halted
The President in his statement, con-
tanned in letter to President Harri-
man of the national chamber, struck
back solidly, although he did not go
into detail. He pointed out that there
had been a material betterment in
conditions in this country since the
Chamber of Commerce held its annual
meeting last year. But he made it
clear that this is no time to hold back.
In the main, he said, American
business has co-operated patriotically
with the administration in its recov-
cry program, and he expected it to
continue to do so. He added that the
Federal Government would continue
its "unceasing efforts to stimulate
employment, increase American values
and bring about a more wholesome
condition" Private business can and
must take up the slack.
And that, indeed, is the job of busi-
ness today. The Government, as the
President has said, has increasingly
tried to bring back employment and
business in this country. 1t would be
Idle for leaders in the business world
to content themselves now with mere
criticism of what the Government has
done. If business can help itself. it
Is certainly time that it did so. It
will not find the Government standing
in the way, except that the Govern
ment will not, if it can help it, permit
a return to some of the practices of
business which were in vogue before
the crash in 1929, and indeed for
time thereafter.
The next few months may be ex-
pected to tell the tale. Congress
within a short time will have gone on
Its way. the legislative program COM
pleted. Then it will be the task of
American business and Of the Govern
ment in cooperation to carry on to-
ward greater recovery. Confidence in
the future has been growing. The
very grumblings reflected in the crit
icisms directed at the new deal by
members of the Chamber of Commerce
are indicative of that fact. 1t is un-
thinkable that business will permit
the country to fall back into the
slough.