The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-04-07

road rates.
It appears, for example, that as
the rate bill fight grew hot, lnVeS-
LEGATIONS that had been initiated
months before by Roosevelt, or
agencies under him, together with
court actions and miscellaneous
movements he had melted" were
used by the White House to break
down opposition.
THIS caused Life to say that
Il there are a few solvent and
respectable persons left in the coun-
try who have not yet been inves-
tigated," and the New York Sun,
which did not approve of T. r.,
remarked that all signs point to a
time in the early future when cor
porate greed shall not longer OPP
press the downtrodden millions.
The corporations are all to be in
vestigated. Mr. Garfield already
has the thumb screws on the
Standard Oil and the coal barOnS.
Mr.. Moody has the Beef Trust on
the rack and is about to put the
elevator companies in the same
painful predicament." Senator For
aker of Ohio cried out that "a
more unnecessary law, or more
misunderstanding law, was never
placed upon the statute books. "
Mr.. Sullivan, as historian, has
this interesting comment upon the
furious controversy over that Roose-
welt measure: There was, of course,
during the debate, the usual con-
juring up of that terror (OminOuS
to statesmen, but to historians a
harmless old friendD, an entering
wedge, a first step to Socialism;
accompanied, alas, by the usual
type of prediction-it would mean,
Congressman Sibley had said in
the lower house, Government
ownership within ten years
And now alas, it is Mr.. Sullivan
who is doing the usual cOnjuring
up of that TERROR an entering
wedge"
7 HASTEN to say that, like Mr..
Il Sullivan, am not always able to
remember what / have written, and
I quote him to himself now only
because it is so important to keep
a sense of perspective and not to
run wild by imagining that Ameri-
can political history began on
March 4, 1888, and that every
measure to regulate corporate
wealth is a revolutionary novelty
and has its origin in Moscow. For
the plain truth is that every major
depression in American history has
been followed by an era of social
reform.
After the severe depression of the
nineties the discomfort which was
expressed by Bryan and the senior
La Toilette was translated by Theo-
dore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson
into a series of great regulatory
measures, all the way from govern
ment rate making to the federal
reserve act What Franklin ROOSe-
welt calls the new deal, his fifth
cousin called in his time the square
deal. and Wilson called the new
freedom.
The essentially new thing in the
present situation is that Franklin
Roosevelt has been setting up his
measures of reform while recovery
is Just beginning. In the past, on
the other hand, we had the recovery
first and then the reforms. BY the
time Theodore Roosevelt went into
action for reform there had been
about five years of recovery from
the depression of the nineties.
When Woodrow Wilson went into
action, not only was the depression
of the nineties completely overcome
but also had been the panic of 1907
Thus neither T. R. nor Wilson had
a problem of recovery. They had
only a problem of reform. 1t is a
mixture of the two in the case of
Franklin Roosevelt that makes his
task so delicate and so very COM
plicated.