The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-02-12
Liberal Viewpoint
BY DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES.

] b1 H..
aLabor's Fight for Power" by George E.
sokolsky Doubleday, Doran & Co, Inc0.
what of Tomorrow" by Ogden L. Mills.
CThe Macmillan Coz.
The Economic Consequences Of the New
Deal" by Benjamin stolberg and Warren Jay
Vinton. CHarcourt, Brace & Coz.
THESE three books approach the problem OF
IL the New Deal from distinctly critical points
of view, but that have little in common in
philosophy or method.
Mr.. Sokolsky seems to be critical of Com
munism, Fascism and New Deal liberalism, alike.
Curiously enough, he seems to think that Com
munism is admirable for a country like Russia
where the difficulties IF establishing and main
tanning it greatest, while 1t is not suitable Tor
countries like Germany or the United States
where it could be set up and operated with in
fnitely less difficulty and expense than in
/ backward agricultural country like Russia.
On one subject he is thoroughly clear in his
mind and that is that country must be wholly
capltalistic or wholly communistic-that it is
futile to attempt to comnine the two systems.
NEITHER is there any doubt in his mind
IN that the New Deal has been a failure,
and he lists Mr.. Roosevelt's major failures to
date:
l. HE could not and did not put 100000
men back to work;
q He was unable to nquefy the frozen as
sets of the United States, so that capital became
available for industry, trade and commerce;
3. HE was unable to reduce expenditures for
relief;
f. He was unable to stimulate the use of
capital goods, particularly iron and steel, build
ing supplies and electrical equipment;
5. He was unable to find a procedure for ad-
justing the relations between capital and labor
which had become .naladjusted during the de-
preston;
6. He was unable to devise program for
protecting the farmer against a maadjusted price
relationship between farm products and manu-
featured goods;
7. HE has not been able to stimulate foreign
trade"
In spite of the fact that it is apparent to all
informed and thoughtful observers that the fail
ureS of the New Deal TO date have been the re-
suit of hesitation and conservatism, Mr. Sokol-
sky comes to the curious conclusion that it will
now turn definitely to the right and prove sue
cess through more conservatism. Such policy
might produce a temporary boom, but 1t will
spell ultimate disaster for the capitalstic sys-
tern, and incidentally for the Roosevelt Admin
istration.
FTER going through book like that by
L n Mr.. Mills most fair-minded persons will be
! likely to develop positive affection and almost
expects the typical Bourbon and Republican
bogeys to sprout from its pages, but one could
also expect Mr.. Mills to show some reasonable
acquaintance with the economic world about
him.
On the heels of the devastating statistics
concerning the inequality of income in the
United States published by the Brookngs Insti-
! tuition and other research groups showing, for
example, that in 1929 the upper one-tenth of
l per cent of the population received as much
as the bottom Al per cent, Mr.. Mills gives fan
taStic picture of American capital being cheated
| out of all the microscopic fraction of its prod
uct. He tells use that from 1919 through 1882
capital received only per cent Of the total
values created by all American corporations. In
spite of the proof that the burden of the de-
preston fell chiefly upon the salaried and work.
ing classes and the farmers, Mr.. Mills would
have believe that it was chiefly borne by bust
ness and finance.
Though there has been no real recovery in
any major capitastic state Mr.. Mills assures
us that there has been recovery everywhere and
that it has been most marked in those countries
which have remained loyal to rugged individual
ism. And we have the old gag about recovery
already being under way in the United States
in the autumn of 1892. In short, Mr.. Mills
might have written as relevant and defendable
a book if he had lived back in Pharonic Egypt.
Messrs. Stolberg and Vinton have expanded
their excellent Mercury article into what is, by
all odds, the best brief critical analysis of the
New Deal They approach it from a resolute
left wing point of view, which is the only angle
from which it is vulnerable. The authors con-
tend that so far an earthquake affecting most
OF the country and bringing ruin in its train
would have accomplished more in an economic
sense than the New Deal has to date. They
point out that the major failure of the New
Deal has been its timidity and hypocrisy in
| supporting labor and say of the labor policy
of Mr. Roosevelt that:
The New Deal for labor has consisted largely
in moving one speech forward and Two steps
| backward"