Evening star., 1934-09-23

First, we should recognize the neces-
sity and establish fixed procedure
for crisis government for phases OF
emergency.
Second, VIC should redefine the re-
spective roles of the Legislature and
the Executive.
Third. we should fix for all time the
function of the expert in Self-gov-
erning democracy.
Fourth, we should make specific
provision for the adequate training OF
able public servants.
Ma jor Revisions Needed.
I do not believe that the current
situation has invalidated the demo-
cratic philosophy of government. 1
do not believe that events make neces-
Sary any revolutionary reconsideration
of the foundations of our national be-
ing. 1 think however, that events
have made necessary certain major
reviSionS of democratic procedure.
In the first place, we should,
think. establish a fixed procedure for
what Lindsay Rogers terms crisis gov
ernment for periods of emergency. To
anticipate and to discount crises is a
mark of maturity in person or in a
people. We cannot always anticipate
the policy crisis may make lmpera-
tive We can anticipate the sort of
procedure that will make possible
the promptitude of action necessary
in crisis and. at the same time. pro-
vide against the unnecessary extensive
F RI # dap,onPrapI- that nftaO
accompanies hastily improvised emer-
gency legislation. 1t is possible also,
! by fOrethOught, to throw Sounder
/ safeguards around the return to nor
NAL procedure when the crisis passes,
than are included in the average
/ emergency arrangements formulated
/ in the haste and hySteria of critical
! situation.
! When this sweeping collapse came
to the enterprise of the world weak
governments saw in the situation a
, choice between diSintegration and
dictatorship. Nation after nation
chose dictatorship. DiSintegration
/ faced us as it faced lesser nations
! elsewhere in the world. Our Gov
| enment was not weak, but its ways
were i'll adapted to the task of deal
ing with a crisis so grave. A less
stable people might have gone the
way of dictatorship. We made no
revolutionary change in the basic
structure of our Government. We
/ chose instead temporarily to adjourn
some of the more deliberate procedures
/ of legislation and to lodge eXtraor-
/ in al leader
/ ship for the period of the emergency
Extraordinary Powers.
Since then varied forces of opposi-
tion have diScreetly but determinedly
/ criticized this move as a subtle as
Sault upon democratic self-gOvern-
ment. 1 find myself at variance with
much that the national leadership has
done with its emergency powers, but
the wisdom and necessity Of granting
to the national leadership eXtraOrdl-
nary powers in the midst of emer-
gency cannot, in my Judgment, be
justly disputed In no other way can
democracy deal effectively with crises
Of major magnitude And if democ-
racy can know when TO adjourn and
when to reaSsemble its normal pro-
cedures, it thereby proves its superb
ority to relationships. for in so doing
democracy secures all the Short-time
advantages of dictatorship without in
curing its longtime liabilities.
This technique of crisis government
should not, however be left to the
improviSing and intrigues of an hour
of incredible worry when the national
mind is at wits end. 1t should be a
matured technique held ready for the
moment of emergency.
We know that We cannot take the
phenomenon of ebb and flow cut of
| the economic life of the modern world.
Not even the most tightly planned
economy, from which the unpredict-
able factor of democratic politics had
been eliminated. could command
brains enough and control enough
/ factors to rid enterprise of ups and
downs.
Complexities of Life.
Life and enterprise in the United
States are more complex and less
tractable than the ambitious apostles
of planning seem to realize. But
crisis always tempts men whose hands
for the moment are on the levers of
power to overSimplify their problem
and attempt a regularization Of the
future by extending into normal times
many of the methods and mechan-
isms called into being by the alb
normal conditions of crisis. At the
end of every depression pressure
comes to project into the era of
restoration the control devices that
crisis made necessary. But plans
made in the midst of panic are not
likely to fit the radically different
requirements of a phase of calm. The
problem is different. 1t is elementary
that policy must be different.
This is why it is important that
the technique for the mobilization and
rehabilitation of crisis government
be fixed procedure formulated well
in advance of the coming of crisis
and without the distortion crisis
effects in the thinking of even the
ableSt leaders. Unless We are ready
to risk the junking of the whole con-
cept of private enterprise and political
liberty in the enthusiasm of the end
ing of some war or depression, we
should bring to the elaboration of a
procedure for the entrance and exit
of crisis government quite as much
care as the trainers of the ConStitu-
ton brought to the invention of those
deliberate limitations on official power
which have safeguarded the root prin-
ciple of democratic self government
and saved us from a thousand ven-
lures in hastily conceived change.
In the second place We should, I
think. reconsider the respective roles
of the legislature and the executive
in American Government and effect a
reallocation of functions between the
two. In the United States. as in
Europe, some of the basic procedures
of parliamentary democracy are not
adapted to the administration of a
vast. complex and swiftly moving ma
tional life And if we want to lay
the ghost of dictatorship We must
revamp the techniqueS of democracy
in terms of the scale, complexity and
tempo of the affairs it must today
administer. This revamping need not,
in my judgment, be revolutionary in