Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1937-10-20

ALI M. Landon, breaking a long
silence indictS President Roosevelt and
his administration. He has, he says,
been willing to give his successful
opponent of a year ago a chance to
bring harmony and progress to the
Nation. The President has done neither,
in the opinion of Mr. Landon, and the
time has come for action.
The picture that the former Governor
OF Kansas draws of President Roosevelt
Is not pretty. He sees him with an
ever-increasing lust for power-different
from the man who took over the reins
of government in the early Spring of
1888. He sees him as dominating
executive, and not a very good or eff
cient one.
Pointing out that progress in this
country is tagging, Mr.. Landon attrib-
utes the lag to the President directly,
and to his methods. There are many
who take the same view. Nevertheless,
the President has recently returned
course of which he was royalty received,
confident that his popularity is as great
as ever. So confident was he that upon
his return that he called Congress
into an early special session to carry
out a program he has already outlined
for it. He is assured, apparently, that
he is on the right road and that the
American people, or a great majority
of them, are with him.
Either the President is right or Mr..
Landon is. After all, the proof of the
pudding is in the eating. There is
either progress or there is not. In the
four and half years that Mr.. Roose-
welt has been President the administra-
ton has spent billions on billions of
dollars-of the peoples money. Taxes
have been at an all-time high for peace
days, and the revenues of the Govern
ment have been large. Yet deficit after
deficit has accrued, until the public debt
has become some fifteen billions more
than when Mr.. Roosevelt took office.
Law after law has been enacted, seeking
to bring about greater social justice, but
many of them have been faulty in their
framing, and faulty in administration.
For four and half years President
Roosevelt has pounded at one class Of
citizens-thoee who have opposed him
and sought to arouse all others against
them. Gradually degree of hatred
has been engendered among the people.
as between classes, such as never before
existed in the United States.
The results to the people of America
OF all this spending and hating and
lawmaking are what should be exam
ined. Mr.. Landon insists that what is
needed now-after the New Deal has
been in operation all these years-is a
new yardstick to measure the results.
In the past the people have been
unwilling to use such yardstick. They
have lived on present spending and
promises of future spending. But now
it appears that progress lags-it has
been admitted even by the President
himself, as Mr.. Landon reminds the
people. 1t is time to learn why it has
Jagged and to correct mistakes which
are responsible for the tagging.
No one in this broad land wishes to
see the depths of another depression,
whether he be Democrat or Republican.
1t is time to take stock, to put on the
brakes. What has been done cannot
be undone. At least, however, it is not
necessary to continue a course under
which progress lags and threatens to
halt. 1t is time to remove from Amer
lean enterprise the blighting fear that
it is to be more and more hog-tied No
New Dealer, least of all Mr. Roosevelt
will admit that American enterprise has
been hampered. 1t is clear, however,
that something is wrong, very wrong,
= land calling the leaders of industry
economic royalists is no remedy.
Mr.. Landon has done healthy thing
when he calls the attention of the coun-
try to the need of sound legislative
measures-not that conditions can be
cured alone by legislation although that
seems to have been the attitude of the
New Dealers. Conditions can be cured
when the country knows what to ex-
pect-and is not subject to constant
surprises,