Evening star., 1935-01-20

centric third parties" get in 1896 will
be subtracted from Mr. Roosevelt and
the Democrats, hardly any from the
Republicans and conservatives. No one
OF the radicals, nor all combined, can
get enough votes to elect the President
but they can get enough to defeat
Mr.. Roosevelt, and thereby elect a
Republican and conservative candidate.
All this, be sure to remember, Is on
the assumption that the country In
1886 is still unhappy with many mil
lions still unemployed. If we are well
on the way to recovery In 1886 moth
ing can prevent Mr.. Roosevelt from
being President again.
Platform Of Performance.
The imperative course for Mr..
Roosevelt. from the point Of view of
his own political fortunes and of the
good of the country, is to bring busi-
ness recovery. BY 1886 he must run
on platform Of performance, not
OF promise, as in 1882. The only
kind of performance that everybody
Will understand Everybody except
the radical fringe) will be business
recovery, the unemployed at work.
1t can be stated thus-it has been
put this way often, but it cannot be
too much reiterated: If industry goes
to work in large volume, that will
take unemployed off the hands of the
GoVernment-and thereby reduce the
financial burden on the Treasury. BY
the same process, If business Is profit
able it will produce taxes, which taxes
will enable the Government to pay
its bills without borrowing. Business
recovery is the only condition that
will bring a balanced budget and full
fill the other formulas of restored
nation.
Why does not business recovery
come? To answer that in detail
would be large order. But it is not
necessary to mention more than one
factor. Every other condition nece5-
sary to recovery could be present, but
yet recovery would not come If there
still existed the one impediment that
MIR. Walter Lippmann described as
punitive and terroristic attacks on
private business and banking. 80"
That impeachment Mr.. Roosevelt has
the power to remove. And, in truth,
If that impediment were taken away,
all the other elements for an i'm
menSe industrial forward stride are
present: Some 100000 unemployed
and eager to work, such an accumu-
lated demand for goods as the coun-
try has never known, banks bulging
with money and credit, private in
vestors willing to lend at rates of in
terest lower than have been known
for 80 years. Among the people a
psychological longing for activity is
like homesickness for remembered
happiness.
Rests With President.
The answer-probably as much as
nine-tenths of it-rests with President
Roosevelt. All that is needed is a
mental attitude on his part. No new
legislation favorable to business is
called for-except perhaps compara-
lively slight modification Of the too
drastic securities act, which has almost |
paralyZed the mechanism for bringing |
credit and industry together. Except !
ing this slight modification of the |
securities act, which should preserve
all the virtues of the act and remove |
merely its impossible features-ex-
cepting that, no repeal of existing leg
islation is needed.
It is not necessary for Mr.. Roose- |
velt to abandon his program for social
reform. Nearly everybody In America |
has come to fell that some form of old |
age insurance and some form of un-
employment insurance are necessary
and inevitable. True, it is the worst |
possible time for putting these addi-
tional costs on the production of goods. |
When a country Is poor is not the best |
time to be generous and not the most |
favorable period to get as much social |
reform as would be possible If the |
country were prosperous.
Declared Major Mistake.
Here lies one of the major mistakes |
the New Dealers have made. They |
found the country PROSTATE, and they
insisted on their reforms because they
feared that If the country were well
it would not accept the reforms. They
were wrong about that. 1t is in time
Of prosperity that a country Is most
willing to be generous. The most con-
spicuous period of zeal for reform
America has ever known was during
the period just preceding the Great
War, when Theodore Roosevelt started
the Progressive party, time of excep-
tional well-being. J
It would have been better had Mr..
Roosevelt brought recovery first and
let reform wait. But no matter, 1t is
still not too late for recovery. But it
may be too late unless Mr. Roosevelt
provides the one most indispensable
requisite, abandonment of punitive
and terroistic" attitude toward busi-
ness.
(Copyripht 1Q35 New York Tribune Inc |