The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-09-04
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

TINE Republican Party is not likely to make
l. much Roadway with American youth unless
it is able to offer them something more in accord
with fact and reality than Congressman Shells
recent radio dud given out as the official Re-
publican response to President Roosevelts adj
dress to the young Democrats of Milwaukee. 1t
has been rare that young Americans have been
asked to listen to more fragrant insult to their
intelligence and experience.
CONGRESSMAN Smell Outdid Mr. HoOver'S most
frantic adulations of what rugged individual
ism" and free initiative have done for the build
ing up of American prosperity. He cOntended
that the New Deal stiles opportunity for youth
and brushes it under oppressive, bureaucratic
RECOMMENDATION.
America is the land of opportunity for the
Individual Millions came from the Old World
inspired by the assurance that here they would
escape the oppressive hand of governmental
regulation, be permitted to work out their own
destinies and enjoy the fruits OF their own IN
dustry and thrift.
Here their daily lives have not been, until
the advent of the New Deal, regimented or their
business policed by some minor government OIL
cial-an age-old condition of the autocratic Old
World they sought to escape by coming TO
America.
ID ISING generations faced no barrier of
N caste They were not restrained by the
oppressive hand of government dictation and
RECOMMENDATION, a system which, wherever 1t
exists, operates to perpetuate in power an OIL
cialdom which is indolent, wasteful, arrogant in
competent and generally corrupt"
Had Mr.. Smell been acting the pre-con-
vention campaign manager of Abraham Lincoln
in the summer Of 1859, his remarks might have
had some logic and relationship to facts. But
coming in the summer of 1885, they are not
unlike recommending the stage coach industry
or canal boating as career for American youth
today.
About a century ago, when we had big and
untitled country, small and growing population,
and developing economy, rugged individualism
Gid make notable contributions to American
wel-beng.
But times have changed almost completely.
Our territory has been occupied. We are in
dustrially mature 1t requires large invest
ment of capital to launch a solvent and prom
Using industrial enterprise. At the same time
labor saving devices are creating an ever larger
army of the unemployed. Moreover most pro-
LESSONS are now SO overcrOWded that after seven
or eight years of college and professional school
work young men find it difficult to find job
which will yield them the income of the better
class clerks or mechanics.
lust where the system of rugged individualism
y places youth today can best be seen by
study Of American youth in February, 1888
There was where the regime of rugged individ
uasm had brought them Millions of them
were out of work There was almost no oppOr-
tunity for further employment in industry, cler-
ical positions professional life. College grad
yates went home to live their parents or
took up their posts beside their apple boxes.
Hundreds of thousands of young Americans had
become a floating population, hitch hiking, rid
! ing the rods, camping with hoboes and in other
ways seeking the Eldorado which rugged individ-
ualism was supposed to offer them.
There was not even decent system of relief
provided to enable them to keep body and soul
together If they had few cents saved up, the
collapse Of our banking system snatched these
manently.
The New Deal has admittedly failed to Gre
ate the new world Of economic opportunity which
Mr.. Roosevelt and his spokesman promised
American youth in the spring Of 1888. But the
Roosevelt Administration has certainly done
more to benefit American youth than all the
Republican Administrations in American his
tory.
The youth of our land may not support Mr.
Roosevelt with unrestrained enthusiasm. But
unless I grossly overeStimate their intelligence,
not many of them are likely to be dumb enough
to imagine that Mr.. Smell and his party can
offer them anything better Indeed believe
that American youth was never more realistic
and hard-boied than it is today. If I am not
mistaken it will recognize that this latest blast
of Congressman Smell is fragrant insult to the
intelligence Of any normally alert American
citizen young or old.