Evening star., 1935-03-04
Two Years of the New Deal

worked to the extent that the
farmers income has advanced
since March. 1888, at a faster rate
than the prices Of the things he
must buy. Relatively. then, the
farmer appears to be better off
than when FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
took office; that indication of sta
tistics is supported by news from
farming communities. But If the
farmer is a buyer, 50 is he a seller.
and his customers in the cities and
towns are not relatively better off
than in March, 1888. The same in
dex figures indicate that the cost
of living for the city industrial
worker has advanced at a faster
rate than his income since March.
1888. Nor do the index figures
take into account the foreign mar.
kets lost to the farmers by volun-
tary reduction Of production.
The public works program, the
other arm Of the central recovery
policy, was based on the theory
that the Federal Government, by
"priming the pump" could help
to bring about natural industrial
recovery. It had the added recon-
mendation that it provided a SUBJ
stitute for the dole or cash relief.
Recent experience in the expendi-
ture of money on public works in
dicates that it costs an average Of
$1,000 a year to give a man en-
ployment. On particular project
the amount may be smaller or
larger, but when billions are spent
on hundreds of projects the aver
age is not far wrong. It is accord
ingly easy to demonstrate that
public works program that would
take up all the slack in unemploy-
ment would have called for annual
appropriations Of $4,000, 600, 900.
and would not, from the nature of
the work, have been able to make
effective use of all the unemployed.
Yet for all the priming the pump
has not seemed to become able to
operate independently. Construc-
tion of public works here and
there, large and small, has not
seemed to provide any impetus. in
particular, for the so-called durable
goods industries.
At the same time that the Ad-
ministration was seeking means
to put men and women back to
work it had to consider the equally
important problem of relief. Work.
less men and women and their
families could not be permitted to
60 cold or hungry or shelterless.
Early in the course Of the Admins
tration the relief problem began to
be marked by a collapse in the
traditional American system Of
help from the nearest at hand.
States, cities and towns pleaded
that their resources were ex-
hausted and begged the Federal
Government to help. The extent
to which this tendency has gone
may be seen by the fact that in
1888 the Federal Government con-
tributed so cents out Of every dol
lar spent on relief, and in 1884
contributed II cents. On January
/, 1885, there were 1900, 900 per-
sons on relief rolls, an increase
of 4.o00.000 in q year.
Step by step with relief and re-
covery has gone reconstruction,
the third "r" Of the Administra-
ton. In his Lincoln Day address
GLENN FRANK, president Of the
University of Wisconsin. pictured
epigrammatically one of the as
poets Of the New Deal. He spoke
of the Kaleidoscope dance Of
hastily improvised policies" Who
cannot see something Of the
changeableness of the kaleidoscope
in an Administration that took Of
flee pledged to the reduction Of
all superfluous Federal activities
and in its first year in office
spawned twenty-five new agencies
and in its second year twenty-five
more? Washington has become
the delight Of the bureaucrat, with
10000 more employees in the ex-
ecutive civil service than were
there two years ago; with admins
trative authority of petty bureau
Gratis multiplied and magnified;
with the fiat Of the bureau head
taking the place Of legislation by
Congress; with the file Of admins
trative rules that have the force
of law swollen to the size of q tree
trunk. This is the same party that
assailed the bureaucracy of the
Hoover Administration.
Under the New Deal the national
debt has mounted to a figure un-
equaled even in 1919, when the
vast expenditures for the world war
had been added to the modest pre-
war debt. True. some of the gross
national debt is represented by
loans which may be recoverable in
better times, but 1t il not the
actual state of the national debt,
disheartening as it is, that causes
the gravest apprehension. but the
absence of evidence that the Ad-