Evening star., 1937-08-13
Will Reason Rule Again?
Era of Prejudces and Struggle for All New Ideas
Guiding u S. Now.

America empiricism degenerated into
pragmatism which is a rejection Of
theory altogether and the philosophy
of rule thumb not to be confused
with realism. It dominates much Of
our university life and unconsciously
influences prevailing attitudes It has
found almost perfect expression in the
New Deal, and in Mr. Roosevelt's
earlier speeches in which he said that
his program was to try various rene
dies out Of the medicine closet, and
reject those which didn't work
That is how we launched a relief
program which was counter to both
theory and experience, only to find
that you have great difficulty later in
rejecting or changing any thing upon
which several million people have come
to depend
But it is nonsensical to indict the
New Deal for this. One needs only TO
recall the complete contempt for ra-
tional processes of the Hoover epoch
1t had it's Cassandras who howled up
the wind, warning of coming collapse.
Only when the collapse was upon us
did any one listen to them Then they
had their day in Washington and did
good job, for they were the inventors
of the idea Of the elastic budget, the
advocates of government spending in
def1ationary period, the heretics who
challenged the theory that household
budget was synonymous in its laws
with that of nation. Some of them
came out of Wall Street. and were
economic advisers to great banking
houses.
To Limbo as ROyalists.
Two or three Of them did the most
constructive and radical thinking in
the Nation in 1898. But where are
they now? In Limbo, described as
Economic Royalists and Reactionaries
because they do not think that what
was good for 1888 is necessarily good
for 1897.
The men of theory reason and ex-
perience Of the first and short lived
New Deal have given way TO the men
OF ideas" of the present New Deal and
in place of a really imaginative and
scientific program aimed at mitigating
business cycles heading off and de-
fecting unemployment, and providing
for an expanding economy by means of
long-range rational policy and largely
automatic government controls, We
have a crowd of idealistic internes
carefully diagnosing pimples and writ
ing up elaborate prescriptions for them
cannot see to save my life what the
question OF balancing or unbalancing
the budget has to do with liberalism
or conservatism. 1t is a technical
question to be judged by rational and
realistic tests of probable social results.
What Every One Wants.
Presumably everybody wants to live
in solvent. stable and expanding
economy, and a dignifed. safe and
creative society, doing good work for
fair remuneration. And most people
want to avoid a catastrophe revolu-
ton. Whatever measures can secure
us these will be the right measures,
and the business of the social critic
is to judge with whatever capacities
he possesses whether or not measures
proposed are taking us in that direc-
ton. He may prove to have guessed
rightly or wrongly. but certainly the
humanitarian impulses of the authors
OF legislation will not be his criterion.
But l am aware that fewer and
fewer people believe there is such
thing as dlsinterested and objective
thinking. The psychologists and neo-