Evening star., 1938-01-23
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

BY MARK SULLIVAN.
N THE current seething at Washington,
I suppose newspapers reflect that they
employ correspondents here, and that
the correspondents ought to be able to
tell them what it's all about. The job is
made difficult by several present conditions
Among them is President Roosevelts per-
sonality. He has been given much power
He has been given much by statute and he
has more by reason of his personality and
the favor his personality has with much of
the public. So here is all that power, and
here is 4 man exercising it having a tenn
perament that is exceptionally unguessable
We know what Heaven and He'll will
bring.
But who can guess the mind of the king?
Not only does Mr.. Roosevelt have liking
for the startling. Not only does he enjoy
doing the unpredictable. He takes boyish
pleasure in what Frank Kent calls proving
the press wrong" Nevertheless, it's up to
us TO try to find the pattern, If any, which
underlies all these recent outgivings and
doings. Not only business but the country
needs to know what Is the net of it, what is
the direction.
Gvopes for Policy.
There is. I think, kind Of pattern be-
meath 1t. There Is need for governmental
policy about business, and the President.
in his cropping. erratically plunging way, is
moving toward such policy At the pres
ent moment he seems to swing eccentrically
between two historic American policies
One Is to let business grow as big as it will,
indeed to encourage bigness, and then put
1t under drastic Government control, prac-
tically to have Government a senior part
ner. That is. to some extent, the old
N. r. A. Blue Eagle" policy.
The other Is the so-called Brandeis
policy-to curb bigness, penalize it. break
1t up. Those two policies rae in the works.
Their jostling and colliding with each
other is the cause Of the current commotion
After time, one or the other will emerge
as the course Of the Roosevelt administra.
ton.
un addition to those two American poll
cies, there Is never-to- forgotten third.
Always IN the minds OF some Of the presi-
Dental advisers and inspirers Is the notion
that the American system, capitalism.
e1tner Is dying or ought to be dying. Al
ways there are those who. directly or in
directly, press toward kicking capitalism
OUT the window and adopting some variation
OF authoritarian society. In which business
And about everything else-is taken over
BY the Government)
Backhre Of Court Plan.
The present commotion Is the latest
stage OF sequence Of events that beran
IN July. In that month the President was
irrltated by the defeat of his court proposal
I think he thought-certainly some about
him thought-that he made a mistake in
yielding; that had he stood pat he might
have won. To feel, after you have given up
contest. that you let your opponent out
olun you, is sure cause of . truculent and
sullen mood. His mood was to fight back
he would still SHOW EN-" I have been
told. by one who knows the inner politics
OF the palace, that Is late as the middle of
October the President intended to send his
court measure back to Congress and de-
mand enactment of it.
But two conditions arose that frustrated
Mr.. Roosevelt's turbulence. The exposures
about his appointee to the Supreme Court,
Mr.. Black, and the public reaction to the
exposures, disturbed the President seriously.
For few days he was thrown rather of
balance. He took trip West: on the day
Mr.. Black was arriving in America from
Europe. Mr.. Roosevelt was as far away
from Washington a. he could get without
wading into the Pacific Ocean. There
were those who interpreted that Western
presidential journey as q prudent absence
from . disagreeable scene.
There came, too, business recession. That