Evening star., 1934-04-29
NEW DEAL DEALT, GIVING
ALL HANDS THEY ASKED
System Seen as Flourishing
Still as Various Groups Begin to
Play Their Much.Desired Hands.

world war began and when the Gre
ative legislative period of the Wilson
administration came to an end, this
country has been accumulating burn
ing ideas which have had no adequate
legislative or administrative expression
and outlet in Washington. These
ideas have been, if one may say so, the
material for vast explosive con-
fagration within the body polite The
new deal has brought them to Wash
ington and, as it were, has put them
under furnaces to find out If there
is any actual useful heat in them and
if they can make any wheels actually
usefully go around.
A great multitude Of business men
have been convinced for years and
years that all would be well if only
they were permitted to conspire to-
gether to annul the Sherman anti
trust law and TO restrict output and
TO fix prices. They are being allowed
in numerous codes to try it out.
A great multitude Of trade unionists
have been convinced for a very long
time indeed that they could further
the fortunes of the wage earners If
only they could acquire a govern
mental guarantee of collective bar
gaining They are being allowed in
various industries to try it out.
A great multitude of farmers have
been convinced for ever so long that
cooperative collective efforts through
governmental channels would bless
them with "iust prices" for their
products. They are being allowed in
numerous marketing agreements" to
try 1t out.
Market Foes Heard
A great multitude of disinterested
reformers have been convinced
through 20 years Of study-that fur
ther regulation Of banks, of invest
ment houses, Of stock exchanges,
would do much good. They are being
allowed in numerous laws and pro-
posed laws to try it out.
And so on and so on. And that
is all there is of the new deal There
is no conference in it. There is no
plan" in it. There is no Bolshevik
or other pilot" in it. 1t has con-
sisted simply Of capitalistic actors.
proletarian actors, agricultural actors
and reformatory actors, leaping onto
the stage and simultaneously impro-
vising their lines.
l am not attempting a paradox but
only asserting what seems to me to
be the serious sober truth when l say
that no greater contribution could
have been made to our ultimate sta
billty and tranquility. Because
But there I come to point four.
uaVirp UOna thrOItrh
and originating stage Of the new deal,
we are now in the winnowing stage.
We are engaged in separating the
grain from the chaff and blowing
away the chaff. The Congress is do
ing lot Of it. But the main thing
on this point is that the new dealers
are doing plenty Of it among them
selves.
New dealers in the Federal Trade
Commission issue devastating fulmi-
nations against the steel industry
code as devised and operated by new
dealers in the National Recovery Ad-
ministration. New dealers in the Ma
tional Recovery Administration full
inmate equally devastatingly against
the petroleum industry code as ad-
ministered by the new dealer who is
the head of the Interior Department.
And the new dealers in the Treasury
Department, If you will Just give
them time. will expose all the alleged
errors of the new dealers in the Fed
eral Trade Commission. The new
deal is running stream which Is out
to purify itself now by its own in
ternal frictionS and flows.
President Takes Hold.
The President himself lends an
earnest hand to this process He told
the railroad employees the other day
that the main thing in recovery was
not the raising of wages. No. Ap-
parently Gen. johnson has been
bit wrong there. The whole N. r. A.
has been bit wrong. The main thing
in recovery. said the President, was
the restoration of full business activ-
ity and thereupon of full employment,
Better business first! And then bene-
fits to the workers could be made to
come in a torrent from it!
Sound" perhaps. But who said II
first? 1 should suppose, Adam Smith.
No more orthodox" no more old
fashioned piece of economic reasoning
was ever delivered to us by any Presi-
dent.
So in sum:
The climax is past. All challenging
ideas have been welcomed. The sup
posed failures among them are now
being mitigated or eliminated. II
eliminated by this hospitable admin
istration. they will not show their
heads again for another 20 years.
What is happening now is the grad
ual smelling of the raw ore of the
New Deal into the refined metal of a
new protracted "normalcy." And rep
resentative government lives. And the
profit system" lives.
From the point of view then of i'm
mediate economic expansion and pro-
gressive prosperity, our chief need is
capitalism which will cease listening
with credulity to rumors of its own
death and which, being alive, will
know so and act so.