Evening star., 1935-12-06
The Choice.

American business has come more
openly into opposition to the Roosevelt
New Deal The Congress of American
Industry, representing large section OF
American trade and industry, meeting
in New York, adopted platform declar-
ing against planned economy" which
its speakers declared to be merely
another name for "autocracy." The
country must choose between the Amer
lean system of private business and pri-
yate initiative and Government planning,
with its corollaries, Government control
and actual Government participation in
and competition against business.
Business, apparently, is not content
with the breathing spell" promised by
the President. It continues to be ap-
prehensive of what is to come after the
spell has come to an end. For that
reason business, or that part represented
bv the Congress of American Industry,
has declared warfare. 1t promises to in
wade the field of politics in defense OF
the principles upon which the industry
of America has been builded in the past.
Among the "planks" included in the
platform adopted by the Congress of
American Industry is included demand
that constitutional guarantees be main
tanned. Without the continuance Of
these guarantees it will be impossible to
restore confidence or to maintain 1t.
Private employment cannot give to
American workers the jobs for which
. they ask if the Government is to pursue
a course which breaks down confidence
and which undertakes to substitute Gov
ernment employment for private. Real
economic security for the people must
rest with the people through economic
progress. Without individual effort Sc
curity cannot remain nor freedom be
maintained. These are truths that have
been proclaimed in America since the
War of Independence, and even before.
The attack extended to the spending
program of the administration and its
financing. The platform said in this con-
nection: Government spending without
provision for its financing except by a
constantly expanding public debt post
pones the day of reckoning, unfairly
passes the burden of taxation on to the
future and arouSeS fear of impending
disaster" With public debt now in the
neighborhood of $30,5OO,OOO,OOO, this
declaration by the Congress of American
Industry sounds like prophecy of evil
days to come. The congress of industry
insisted, too, upon sound currency"
maintained upon dollar of fixed gold
value. The Government today has a
vast reservoir of gold, which it is intent
upon burying in the ground. The con-
tention is made that it is there; that it is
back of the currency of the United States;
that the American dollar is as sound
today as ever. The very fact, however,
that the dollar is not based upon gold
arouses the fear that currency imitation
OF disastrous proportions may arise to
plague the people. Particularly when
debts have to be paid by the Government.
n Ao1C VI "dAAAIAS was Sou1luCu aeoiAAoU
efforts of certain members of the New
Deal family to arouse 'class conscious
ness" particularly the Undersecretary of
Agriculture, Rexford C. Tugwel. The
promise of opportunity to all men has
been an underlying principle in Ameri-
ca since the beginning. The rise of many
men from humble circumstances to the
highest that American civilization has to
offer bears witness to the efficacy of that
principle in land where freedom has
prevailed. Any administration which
stirs class hatred is tearing at the vitals
of the American idea.
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