The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-05-03
Liberal Viewpoint
BY DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

NEWSPAPERS during the last few days have
Y carried news which should give great joy
to calamity howlers, radicals and all others who
wish to see the end of the present economic,
social and political order
Far better cause for radical jubilation than
any reports of vast May Day parades have been
the news items relative to the more or less open
declaration of war upon the New Deal by the
responsible and recognized leaders of American
business and finance These men, if not re-
buked and frustrated, will do more to wreck our
present order than legion of calamity
hoWlerS" or proletarian agitatorS. If anything
could incite reasonable men to stand by the
President" it must be these recent stupid and
short-sghted and destructive announcements.
First, carefully timed to parallel the PreSi-
den's "freside chat" came the blast of the Ma
tional Association of Manufacturers. Its spokeS-
men announced that American business stood
ready to spend $20000O 100000 for plant ex-
pansion and replacement. They further as
serted that potential demand exists for $40
O00000,000 worth of durable goods. All this
would give us a great wave of prosperity and
would draw the great public works program of
the Administration as boost to returning
prosperity.
All this is held up, so said the manufac-
turers, by the obstructive and terrifying legsla-
ton proposed by the Administration such as the
unemployment insurance BILL the banking
legislation the holding company bill, railroad
reorganization and coordination, and the like
In other words. there was an implied threat to
sabotage the economy Of the country unless the
President backs down and gives business and
finance free rein to head us once more toward
the confusion and collapse of 1888 after
brief possible squirt of fictitious prosperity.
NEXT, on successive days came manifestoes
~ by the Chamber of Commerce of the
United States. Those were directed against:
Cd the impending Federal banking legislation
which is designed to curb financial piracy and to
subject great public institution to some meas
ure of public control; and co the NRA and the
New Deal policies in general.
Then the magnates of the predatory utility
holding companies not only increased their
calamity against the Wheeler-Rey-
burn bill, but also sailed into the IVA and other
projects whereby the government has been en-
deavoring to set examples which would force
the electric utility industr into some semblance
Of decency and justice
Finally the New York Times the most in
tIuentlal organ of reputable American conser-
VatlSn, acting as a sort Of "mop-up" squad
deplored editorially the uncertainty" generated
by Roosevelt policies and lamented that "un-
luckily official experimenters are in control and
apparently, they are determined to apply their
formulas. If they have bunged badly in some
OF their recent legislative undertakings, that
1act does not appear to affect their zeal for
trying it again at once.
All of this would seem to indicate that Amer
lean business and finance have not learned. any,
thing from their experience in the postwar
period. Avarice and imbecility would appear
to be their chief intellectual stock-in-trade
even when their attitudes are judged solely by
the most hard-boiled considerations of capital
iStic self-interest.
MI. Roosevelt is open to criticism, it is to
i criticism from the left-to the charge that
he has not gone far enough to save capitalism
and democracy. He is far more vulnerable to
the shafts Of Long, Coughlin La Toilette and
Broun than to those of Hartman Strawn
Willkie and other spokesman of unregenerate
big business and finance capitalism.
The President has asked less than what most
competent economists regard as the minimum
concessions essential to save capitalism. The
NRA was the child Of the Chamber of Com
MERGE Of the United States and not the off,
spring OF official experimenters" If business
will not go as far as Mr.. Roosevelt asks. then
indeed there is no hope of saving the capital
iStic system, and the radicals NAV well rejoice
We have now come to the parting of the
ways. The President must assert his leadership
stick to his guns and defy big business if neces-
sary. What good will it do to spend 20 billions
Of dollars for plant expansion or to produce 40
billions Of dollars worth of goods if nobody
workers, clerks or farmers-haS the money with
which TO purchase them2