Evening star., 1935-04-14
BY MARK SULLIVAN.
r UST now is a dividing time,

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the New Deal, of President
~ Roosevelt's policies-and there
fore in the fate of America.
The present, consequently. is an apt
time for summing up and looking for
ward. The present is better time
than the previous occasions when
such summaries have been made, at
the end of Mr.. Roosevelt's first two
years in Office and at New Year; the
currents and tides Of events do not
conform to the calendar, climaxes and
dividing points do not time them
selves to arrive on anniversaries.
What makes the present a cross
roads is the arising, among Demo-
cratic leaders and rank and file in
Congress Of a conviction that they
should take hold Of things; that they
should live up to their constitutional
prerogative; that they should initiate,
write and enact legislation themselves
rather than take it readymade from
the executive branch Of the Govern
ment.
One might express the mood Of the
Democrats in Congress by saying they
have come to see that the Democratic
party, with its body of policies and
traditions. Is one thing, and that the
New Deal, the new economic order"
which Mr.. Roosevelt proposes, is a
different thing. The Democratic
leaders feel that it was not Mr.. Roose-
welt alone to whom the country en-
trusted its fate in 1882: they consider
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waited to power and given franchise
just as Mr.. Roosevelt was. They re-
gard the Democratic party as an in
stitution with a long history and,
they hope, long future They think
Of themselves as trustees, in their
generation, for the Democratic party;
they regard themselves as having
duties which cannot permit them to
surrender the fate of the party wholly
to one man, any one man, who in the
normal nature of things cannot have
an official life longer than eight years
Presidents Function.
It is because Of this new mood of
the Democrats in Congress that we
are at fork of the road AS one of
the two roads ahead We may pass into
period of normal functioning of
government, with Congress writing
the legislation; with the President ex-
ercising-and confining himself to
his constitutional function of signing
or vetoing. and. in cases where the
President vetoeS, Congress either ac-
cepting the veto or passing the legis-
lation over it by the necessary two
thirds majority.
That is one road: the other would
be to go on with what we have had
for more than two years-the Presi-
dent initiating legislation, the meas
ures being written by members of the
administration, the Congress accept
ing and enacting the legislation SUBJ
stantially as written. As between the
two roads one would say the present
tendency is strongly toward the first.
toward resumption by the majority
party in Congress of its prerogative
Which road we shall take depends
largely on public opinion, on whether
the country continues to prefer ex-
traordinary elevation of the President
over Congress-in effect command of
Congress by the PreSident-or whether
the country will be more content with
the Government functioning accord
ing to the checks and balances that
the founders of the Government in
tended.
The course the country has been
through during the two years began
with and was determined by the
chance that caused Mr.. Roosevelt to
| come in contact with the men who
subsequently became known as the
"brain trust" Had Mr. Roosevelt.
when he was Governor of New York
and during the period when he was
seeking the presidential nomination
and election-had Mr.. Roosevelt at
that time had the normal relations
that party candidate has with the
accepted leaders of his party, in that
event he might have given the coun-
try a normal administration, with
adaptation, of course, to abnormal
times. He might have laid out his
policies in consultation with the
party leaders along familiar American
lines, and with acceptance of the lin
itations inherent in the American
system. He might have lived up to
the party platform written in the ma
tional convention of June, 1882, and
might have taken pride in doing so.
Leaders Seem Ignored.
There might have been a New Deal,
but it would have been a New Deal
within the framework of the Ameri-
can Constitution and social system.
The Democratic leaders at that time
included-I think it is safe to say
no man who advocated what Mr.
Roosevelt calls "a new economic
order" Among them there. was none
who at that time would have con-
templated what Mr.. Roosevelt has
called "a permanent readjustment of
many of our ways Of thinking and
therefore Of many of our social and
economic arrangements" One might
make list of hundred men who,
at the time Mr.. Roosevelt was running
for the presidency, had rank as Demo-
cratic leaders, and in all the list there
would have been only one, perhaps,
Senator Robert F. Wagner of New
York, who might have contemplated
or approved the degree and kind Of
change that Mr.. Roosevelt became
impregnated with and tried to i'm
pose on America.
What happened was that chance
threw into association with Mr.. Roose-
welt during 1882 the men who subSe-
quently became known as the brain
trust" The first was Prof. Raymond
Moley. Prof. Moley was not and is
not really a radical. He was COL
lege professor of no particular identity
with novel ideas, but energetic and
eager. the type that becomes the work.
ing director of movements" commits
sions of one sort or another. Prof.
Moley, had he been the only one to
reach Mr.. Roosevelt's ear, would not
have departed materially from what
might have been recommended by
orthodox Democratic leaders. But
chance had it that Prof. Moley had a
next-door neighbor, another Columbia
professor, Rexford G. Tugwell. Prof.
Moley introduced Prof. Tugwell to Mr..
Roosevelt and Prof. Tugwell began to
inject into Mr.. Roosevelt's mind no
tions which are suggested in a poem