Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-06-30
New Deal Chess
BY OWEN L. SCOTT.

midterm of one after another Of the
original experiments.
President Roosevelt has been on the
defensive most of the time in recent
months. Absence of recovery, high
food prices, Supreme Court manhandling
of New Deal laws, work-relief delay,
| and the Leviathan deal combined to
create the appearance Of a near COL
lapse of the New Deal.
Stories began to spread through the
country that Mr.. Roosevelt had lost his
grip, that he was irritable, that he took
the Supreme Court destruction Of N.
r. A. with poor grace, and that DELHI
crate effort was under way to sabotage
recovery by creating confusion.
Congress felt this reaction and began
to kick over the traces.
Now 1t is evident there Is another side
to the story, and one that prominent
New Dealers believe to be the correct
one.
They picture the President as an aStute
chess player. His every important move
since the tide turned against the New
Deal is seen to fit into pattern OF
strategy that leads up to November,
1886. In a reform regime, or any other
for that matter, the first essential is
to hold power. Otherwise, changes ef-
fected become meaningless.
y X
The Supreme Court, in its N. r. A. de-
cision, caught the President of balance
and upset important plans. One after
another Of the Roosevelt experiments
faced possible court trouble. To allow
these experiments to drift into destruc-
ton during the next year hardly would
impress the country with the skill or
wisdom of the present administration.
In the face of that situation, the
Presidents recent moves have clear
meaning to his advisers. They are not
the moves of a leader who IS f1oundering.
Instead, some of the recent moves have
been so subtle and daring that they led
to trouble. One OF these was the move
that would have rushed through Con-
gress the Presidents Notwithstanding
tax plan, without giving opponents
chance. That play may cost heavily.
The now famous May 81 conference
with newspaper men f in with that
picture. Mr.. Roosevelt Sh pointed out
that in his opinion the people OF the
country would need to decide whether
this was to be centralized Nation with
power to deal with modern national
problems. or a federation of 4S sovereign
States with only limited power to deal
with economic problems common to all.
Statements have been made that this
was a hasty, ill-cOnsidered performance.
The fact is that it was carefully
planned and well thought out in ad-
vance.
Presidential moves since that time fit
into the pattern of changed policy.
of
off by the Supreme Court. President
Roosevelt urged Congress to press ahead
to test other Federal powers. He has
refused to remain on the defensive.
On his inSiStence, Congressman voted
to establish national system of old
age insurance and unemployment insur-
ance. They voted to set up national
labor law. They prepared to bulwark
the New Deal farm experiment. its Ten
nessee Valley experiment and other
experiments White House instructions
urged enactment of a new plan to use
national credit to help tenant farmers
become farm owners and to use Federal
taxing power to force a code on the
soft-coal industry.
The Roosevelt strategy called for en-
actment of a program that presumably
would be popular with vast segmentS OF
the population. Then, if the Supreme
Court told those people that they coulo
not have their programs. the responsible
fly would be the courts.
Instead of accepting the constitutional
issue on the basis of N. R. A. alone, the
President decided to let it develop, If 1t
must, on wide front.
X X
Mr.. Roosevelt also is taking another
tack, designed to hold popular interest
while the New Deal is going through
the courts.
The first two years of the present
administration were based on the theory
that the Federal Government could
engineer recovery N. R. A.. was
corner stone in that program. 1t was
offered by business itself and was &C
cepted by the brain trust group as
means of smoothing out supposed bar
riers to recovery through cooperation
with industry. Encouragement was
given to bigneSS.
But now NJ R. A. has been torpedoed.
Big business seldom has been popular
with the mass of the countryS voters.
Codes had threatened to create po-
ltical problem of no mean proportions.
The Supreme Court removed them.
30 IIle FTeSlQeIlt, Will d SWlII dOOul-
face, has wheeled up a tax plan which
is the antitheSiS Of N r. A.
Where bigneSS was encouraged for two
years. it now Is to be penalized. Where
concentrated wealth was accepted and
encouraged to cooperate with the Gov
eminent, it now faces new tax barriers.
Where antitrust laws were forgotten,
they now are to be enforced.
AS Mr.. RooSevelt's friends see it, he
is turning back to a type of program
that appeals to the voters.
They believe the people never did
trust N. R. A., with its emphasis on
bigness or P. w. A. with its emphasis
on large-scale spending as means of
printing the pump of economic recovery.
Both are out the window. In their
stead are plans that New Dealers de-
scribe as more orthodox.
A principal complaint of thoughtful
| New Deal critics has been that the
President insisted that he sought re-
| covery through the machinery of private
capitalism, yet at the same time engaged
| in experiments that made the operation
| of that machinery difficult, if not i'm
| possible.
But now, with N. R. A. out of the way,
| the chief agency of Government re-
| straint is removed. So far as the Gov
eminent is concerned, competition is
free to get in its work, if industry gives
| it chance.
II II