The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-12-11
Liberal Viewpoint
BY DIR. HARRY ELNTER BARNEs :

DoNALD RIcHBERG and Professor Moley
IL have been trying to reassure big business
and make its leaders feel that President Roose-
welt is their friend. much more powerful and
logical statement of the affinity of the Roosevelt
policies with business interests and Of the folly
of business in trying to sabotage the New Deal
which have ever read is contained in an open
Letter to Big Business" by John T. Flynn in the
New Republic The more cogent parts Of Mr.
F1ynns argument are reproduced herewith:
Now ask you to forget the nonsense about
the Brain Trust and the left wing experiments
They exist chiefly in the minds of headline
writer's and disturbed souls like Mark Sullivan
ask you honestly to examine the course Of Mr..
Roosevelt.
DO you know of any Republican President
who has been more completely settled on his
high tariff policy than the President? Has the
tariff wall been preached at any point? In the
matter Of money, has he not exhausted the re-
sources of strategy to hold off currency inf1a-
ton? He has, of course, taken the country of
| the gold standard. But when he did, was not j.
Pierpont Morgan the first to approve his course?
His gold purchase plan was not sound ex-
pedient but you will have to concede that it
was an attempt to produce higher commodity
prices in the world markets without actually
initiating the currency.
"As for the Sherman and Clayton antitrust
laws, which you have tried to have modified or
suspended for years, did he not give you the
complete suspension of them; and did he not
give you, upon the easiest terms, the boon OF
| self-government in industry, which means the
control over MISUNDERSTANDING production con-
troll and price fixing - through your own trade
| associations? Has he not persistently urged
higher prices for your goods and offered to lend
you money to that end?
"UOU may quarrel with Section IA, which
i accompanied these gifts, but you are COM
PEELED, in all fairness, to admit that the President
has done everything possible to make this provi-
sion as little irritating to you as possible. His
NRA administrator, General Johnson, for all his
turbulence and believing, declared that under
NRA there could be no closed shop. And with
General johnson gone, his successor, Donald
Richberg, proclaimS the same principle. Have
you not, from end to end, in your several indus
tries gained your respective points in almost
every quarrel with your employees? Could any
Republican President have done more for you?
What one has eyer done as much?
Can you name Republican administration
where the representatives of big business have
been more generously represented? Do you not
see one OF your own number, Jesse Jones, at the
head of the RFC? Is Eugene Black a stranger in
your midst? And Harvey Couch, once of the
Chase National Bank? And Mr. Moffett at the
head of the Housing Administration?
WAS Mr.. Hoover in his palmiest days more
intimately devoted to your interests than Dan
Roper in the Commerce Department, or Mr..
Swanson in the Navy, or Mr.. Hull in the State
Department, or Mr.. Cummings in the attorney
generals office? beg you to compare the num-
Der of prosecutions of big business under Mr..
Donovan when Coolidge was President or under
Mr.. Mitchell when Hoover succeeded him.
FEVER in all those twelve long years of
L y Harding, Coolidge and Hoover has there
been such a procession of business leaders asked
to Washington to state their views Never was
there President who more fundamentally
given to the aim of making business profitable
and doing everything to make it so, or one who
has shielded you from heavy taxes more assid-
upusly than he.
1.-THE Republican party, as an instrument for
actually serving you is dead. Its resurrection
seems rather remote. If you need an agent in
Washington, your one hope is the Democratic
party. AS a matter of fact you will have q
much better chance in an alliance with the
South than with the West, which will soon be in
open revolt.
IF you are wise, therefore, you will move in |
on Mr.. Roosevelt. You will adopt him. You will |
make the Democratic party the party of big
business And you will not permit the power
interests to hinder you because of IVA It is |
the power interests and some big Wall Street !
promoters who have ridden the Republican |
party to death. There is m reason if you will
examine the matter, why yod should pull theiy |
chestnuts out of the fire
Let Mark Sullivan DR.. Writ Col Mccormick |
and David Lawrence laugh this off!