The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-06-22
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

1T has been the dream of American liberals
l. that the economic leopard would change its
spots They have hoped that the predatory
mogulS of finance capitalism and the Bourbon
industrialiSts who view labor as an imperSonal
commodity to be exploited would see the error
of their ways, repent and cooperate in the
building of a decent social order. 1t has been
the liberal aspiration that progress might be
achieved gradually, thus escaping the extremes
Of both FasciSm and Communism.
1t was this conception which led progress
sives to rally to the support of President Roose-
welt, for they believed that he was inspired by
this conviction. 1t also seems to have been
the dominating conception of his liberal and
idealiStic advisers who aimed to make lone big,
happy family" out of industrial America.
This philosophy of middle class idealism and
progress is developed in forceful fashion from
the historical point of view by c. Reinold Moves
in his book, Americas Destiny" (McGraw-
Hill; $3.50. Mr.. NoyeS summarizes his hopes
for the future in the following manner:
at has as its tacit ideal society composed
wholly of bourgeois-that is, of working prop
erty owners-the kind which produced modern
Europe and which may be counted upon to
produce future America.
Such a universally 'burgherized' civiza-
ton represents a new type. 1t contemplates
general culture, not one maintained for and by
few drones superimpoSed upon a mass of
workers, like the great culture of the past, but
one in which all participate, earning by their
efforts high degree of material comfort and
having ample leisure in which to enjoy this
comfort and the wider opportunities for self
development.
TN America today the steps which are leading
i and will lead, toward this ideal are part and
parcel of Americas way. When we cease to
revere and initiate Europe there will be no in
centive for few to attempt to reconstruct here
what is at best relic OF the past even there
an ariStocracy.
LAS we continue our economic trends machin-
cry will more and more remove the necessity
that men should have to perform any stulti-
flying work and will elevate all workers to the
ranks of managers-managerS of machines or
of each other. That will in time eliminate the
possibility of a proletariat
las we continue the policy of the open door
of opportunity to all, of welcome to those who
show the capacity to rise, and the policy of
giving every individual a fair start in the race,
not handicapped by intelligent or physical or
social disadvantages we will succeed in main
tanning and perfecting our clasSlessneSs and
forbid the possibility of a vested plutocracy.
Finally, if, among those individual leaders
who do succeed in gaining the major financial
rewards by reason of their special contributions
to our economic progress, there might obtain a
Self-impoSed restraint and sense of trusteeshp
"a notion that richesse oblge-the spirit of
claSsleSsneSs might be fully realized"
do not share the dogma of radicals and
reVolutioniStS that this middle class dream is
theoretically impossible of realization But any
one capable of the slightest realism today must
probably admit that the opportunity has prob
ably been missed
Those who control our middle class indus
trial civilization seem determined to increase
rather than to eliminate the gulf between the
fortunate few and the miserable masses. They
have done their best to wreck the New Deal,
which was probably the last feeble effort to adj
vance social justice in this country from the
liberal and middle class angle. They have
headed US almost irrevocably toward ruin, Fas-
ciSnl, collapse and revolution. Their greed and
ort-sightedness seem to have made of the
American dream tragic futility.
! A CHATTY and breezy Interpretation of the
"A United States today is contained in John
Gibbons rs This American" (Dutton $3.50 full
of wit if not especially profound. Several years
| ago Claude Bowers told of the part played by
white politicians in the Tragic Era" after the
Civil War. An equally able and thorough ac-
count of the part Of the Negroes in the age of
reconstruction is told by w. E. Burghardt Du
Bots in his BLACK Reconstruction" (Harcourt,
Brace. S4-50)
With the possibility of imitation and silver
agitation ahead readers will find convenient and
timely william P. Shea's clear primer, Silver
Dollars" putnam. 81. "A Layman's View of
History" by Henry Osborn Taylor Macmillan
| $3.50, shows that the mind of the distinguished
historian is more in tune with the Middle Ages
which ne loved so much, than with the trends
1 and issues of the Twentieth Century.