Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-05-26
BY OWEN L. SCOTT.

President Roosevelt, quietly but def
nitely, Is ending or curtailing New
Deal experiments that did not work
as expected. This process is being
carried on with the least display and
with few admissions, but its progress
Is increasingly evident.
Present changes are in line with
the Presidents promise to the people
that plans found to be impractical or
ineffective would be dropped or al
tered. Few New Deal experiments
face destruction, but several are I'M
dergoing rather drastic treatment.
The belief that national recovery
can be planned and engineered from
Washington no longer dominates.
Pump printing. recovery by ballyhoo,
trick money plans designed as PAN
aceas. e. P. l. c. ideas of using the
unemployed to produce goods for
theier own use in a miniature social
istic state, subsistence homesteads,
rigid securities regulation-all are
fading.
Only the farm experiment. among
the major original New Deal recovery
plans, stands as first designed. 1t
serves as a testimonial to the judg-
ment and astuteness of Henry Wal
lace, Secretary Of Agriculture, and
Chester Davis, A. A. A. administrator.
They refused to be swept from their
feet by early New Deal enthusiastic.
Even today both Mr.. Wallace and Mr..
Davis regard their present farm
control program as temporary.
X
Recovery now is accepted by the
President as a job for industrialists
and business men, rather than for
Federal planners. Yet that does not
curb the urge to experiment. The re-
suit is that as one plan is ended or
changed another is brought forward
in its place.
Work relief, on new basis. replaces
pump printing. Banking legislation is
designed to take the place of money
tinkering Unemployment insurance
and old-age pensions are brought for
ward as offerings to workers after
N. R. A. fails to fulfill its promises.
Talk of a balanced budget and an
end to heavy spending is heard, where
formerly emphasis was laid on an un-
limited Federal credit.
What of the experiments that were
tried and found wanting? Just what
is happening to them?
Take N. r. A. as a first example.
Mr.. Roosevelt is endeavoring to save
it's life But in doing so he empha-
sizes the reforms accomplished under
the Blue Eagle, not its achievements
in the field of recovery
In fact. prominent New Dealers now
are convinced that the greatest mis-
take of the Roosevelt administration
Hugh johnson, former N. r. A. ad-
ministrator, to build recovery drive
around that law. They see in 1t a
means of working some reforms in
industry, but no tangible means OF
effecting recovery.
If Congress permits the Blue Eagle
to live, as it Is expected that it will,
the whole muddled code system will
be contracted, worked over and re-
established on a more modest basis.
That will represent strategic retreat.
N, r. A. stands as the principal
New Deal failure. Most officials con-
cede as much.
r X X n
Or turn to pump printing. This Is
accepted as another glaring failure.
Yet, like N. R. A., it Is being eased
gradually from the New Deal picture,
rather than being thrown out bodily
on its ear. As a result, the public Is
hardly aware of the collapse Of sec
ond experiment and its replacement
by another plan.
The idea had been that a public
works administration, with $4,000, 000,-
600 to spend, could take up the slack
in industrial unemployment not &C
counted for by the shorter hours of
N R. A. codes and at the same time
prime the pump of private industry.
Actually few direct jobs were ere
ated, spending proved difficult and
slow. and the pump wasn't primed.
So what is now happening?
In place of P. W. A. there is being
created a much more ambitious
G. w. A. to create 100000 jobs for
at least one year at a cost OF
81, 600, 100000.
Where P. w. A. jobs average from
$4,000 to $4,000 per job in cost each
wear. the new work-relief jobs will
average around s1,14o, including wages
and material. Where p. w. A. paid
prevailing" or union rates Of wages,
work-relief will pay subsistence" sal
aries on a much lower basis.
Essentially, the new plan Is to OBJ
tain work in exchange for relief. It
differs from the Civil Works Admins
tration of late 1888 and early 1884
IN that wages paid workers are to be
lower on an hourly basis, and pro-
jects that are undertaken will be more
carefully planned.
Involved Is a definite shift away
from one more New Deal experiment.
Then there was the commodity dol
lar and a managed currency. Mr..
Roosevelt about eighteen months ago
gave the country to understand that
an old-fashioned gold dollar would
remain q thing of the past.
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