Evening star., 1935-12-01
The Atlanta Speech.

President Roosevelt struck back at his
critics in his Atlanta speech, particularly
at those who have attacked the New Deal
spending and the New Deal agricultural
program. In the main. his address was
a defense. True, he frequently harked
back to the dark days of the Winter of
1928, and asked in effect, if the coun-
try was not better off today. 1t is better
off in the sense that the people have
more hope that business has increased
along many lines. But many of the
people are beginning to wonder how well
off they will be if the New Deal program
Is pressed to its ultimate conclusion; If
the program of Government borrowing
and Government spending is continued
much longer.
The President coined a new phrase,
which may or may not be heard in the
coming campaign: You can invest your
way into sounder future" He prefaced
this with the statement: "Your Govern
ment says to you, You cannot borrow
your way out of debt" Perhaps the
Chief Executive is anxious to convince
the people that the money which is
being taken from them in taxes, and will
be taken from them eventually in more
taxes, is merely an investment; that
Government deficit is an investment. 1t
is quite clear that the President has not
taken kindly to the suggestion that the
administration has undertaken to borrow
its way out of debt; that it has encour-
aged the States and the local commun-
tiles also to borrow their way out of debt.
Investing what nation or an individual
does not have sounds, however, very much
like borrowing.
To support his contention that the
administration has not, and is not, run
ming the country into financial ruin with
its spending program, the President told
a story of a conference with great bank
ers" in the Spring of 1888. These bank
ers. the President said, had told him the
country could stand national debt of
SIS, ,O00,o 900 to $4,000, 100000 if need
be. The bankers, then, the President in
dicated, were seeking to save their own
skins. The President at that time chided
the bankers. II told them" he said,
"that rise in the national debt to any
such figure was, in my judgment, wholly
unnecessary, and that even If they, the
bankers, were willing could not go
along with them" The President in
sisted that the country should remember
that the bankers and the business men
both now generally attacking the New
Deal spending-"would have been willing
to put the country far deeper into debt
than shall ever let 1t CO." 1t almost
seems that the President owes it to the
people to identify the bankers who gave
such advice.
However it may be CLOSED over, the
fact of the matter is that the national
debt has increased by many billions Of
dollars during the two and half years
of the Roosevelt administration: that
it Is going to increase still more, by bill
lions of dollars, unless the spending pro-
gram is halted. If this be an unpalatable
fact it can make little difference whether
the President was told by number of
bankers that the country could have a
still greater deficit.
The President told the country in his
Atlanta speech that I'VE have passed the
peak of appropriations; revenues with
out the imposition of new taxes are in
creasing, and we can look forward with
assurance to decreasing deficit" Here
is prophecy that may bear analysis.
Appropriations may be decreased and
still be tremendous; revenues may be in
creasing, but they may not increase to
o degree that will prevent new taxation
to meet the great spending program, and
deficits may decrease and still be huge.
The administration has in the past
placed its estimates of deficits at higher
figures than have actually occurred, but
that did not lessen the fact that deficits
ran into the billions and continue
to do so.
The Atlanta address already is her
aided as the real opening of the Presi-
dents campaign for reelection next
year. He spoke of the fact that 3,125,0o0
workers have been employed in works
programs and taken of the dole; that
prices Of cotton and wheat and corn
have advanced from the low points of
early 1888. He did not, however, touch
on the fact that many millions Of work.
ers remain still unemployed, and that
Americans are consuming larger guam
titles of foreign farm products than ever
before. Presumably the millions of un-
employed are hereafter to be cared for by
the States and the cities, not by the