The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1936-02-21

coIIonca Of credit Local relief funds were
exbansted. The unemployed and the veter-
ons; ORGANIZATIONS were centers Of seeth-
inc unrest. Mississippi valley farmers were
in omen revolt. When Roosevelt was Inaug-
Grated on March 4, 1888, the United States
was on the edge of a social volcano.
"Big business was In jam, and the pig
businessmen knew it. They called upon the
new president and federal government 10
"do something" In the language OF the
prizefighter and of the revolutlonlst, they
used their left.
The new administration acted with Wig
or and determination. It took control Of the
banks: loaned billions to tOtter1ng bust
nesses: provided huge sums for direct re-
lief to the unemployed; began an extended
system of public works; established a pro-
cessing tax that provided subsidy for the
desperate farmers; and launched a cam
paign for system of collective bargaining
that was based on guarantee to labor Of
the right to organize.
big businessmen by the score accepted
posts in Washington at nominal salaries or
no salaries at all. Day after day they work
ed tireleSsly under the Blue Eagle TO save
their system from collapse. Through 1888
big business continued to support the New
Deal. There were exceptions, of course, but
by and large the country was behind the
president.
"The scene changed in 1894 and 1885.
The worst Of the depression was over. The
farmers and the unemployed had ceased
to agitate and threaten. Production was
rising. The stock market climbed steadily.
Profits were 40 per cent higher in 1885
than they had been in 1884. Big business
was out of the woods and it acted accord
ingly.
big business had used it's left in 1892
and 1888. In 1885 the tina had come for
it to use it's right. William Randolph
Hearst, the highest salaried man in the
United States, led off with a red scare.
Suits were entered against the NRA, the
utilities act, the AAA. The Liberty League
swung into action. The Natl. Manufacture
ers Assn. made frontal attack on the pol
icies of the Roosevelt administration The
Supreme Court did it's best by declaring
unconstitutional one feature after another
of the New Deal.
"This successive use of left and right is
a method employed by every ruling class
In periods of emergency.
For example, during the Russian revo-
luton of 1905, the car was eager to grant
reforms to his people. In 1907 and 1908,
when the revolutionary wave had subsidized
the reforms were swept aside by tidal
wave of reaction. Recent experience in Ger
many, Austria and Italy bears out the con-
tentiOn. So long as the ruling class in these
countries felt their positions to be serious
ly threatened, they called the forces of the
left to their defense. AS this danger sub
sided they turned from the left back to
the right, abandoning and wrecking the re-
forms on which they had made their come
back to power.
"A social reform that leaves ownership
OF the means of production, control of the
agencies of propaganda, and the armed
forces in the hands of the ruling class
bears about the same relations to the So
cial system that coat of paint bears to
a house. 1t changes the appearance but
does not change the structure. Further
more, with little additional brush work
it may be pink today and white tomorrow. ''