The times-news., 1938-11-29
NEWSPAPERS OPINIONS
LET'S KEEP THE BRAKES IN GOOD ORDER

Wherever an attempt has been made to over
throw social order, whether an American revolu-
ton OF a German putsch, the revOutlonists follow
two lines of attack One is to kindle hate against
those who symbolize the existing order. The other
is to enlist the physical force to get control.
We see illustrations wherever we look. In Rus
sia Lenn fired the workers and soldiers with dead
y hate of arstocrats land owners and the intelli-
gentsa. In Italy, Mussolin famed Italian emotions
to white heat by sgmatizng strikers and others of
his old friends in the labor unions as Communists
seeking to Russianize Italy. Hitler mbued the Ger
mans with loathing of the Jew as the personifca-
ton of all evil.
We are changing our social system in the United
States, and by the same methods. Whether for
good or i'll, there can be no mstakng the historic
technique of revolution.
Our hate campaign has been directed at business
and the business man. Seldom day has passed or
an hour on the radio that the public has not been
exhorted to hate business Bankers were money
changers to be driven from the temple; invest
ment bankers appropriated the widows mite with
out conscience; the power trust was bleeding the
people white; commercial aviation was without NOR
ais; manufacturers were exploiters of child labor,
operators of sweat shops and labor tyrants; lumber
oil and coal men were "barons"; stock and grain
exchanges were gambling houses; retailers were
gougers and chiSelerS; steel and chemical compa-
nies, fomenters of war; railroads msmanaged tele-
phones, too much power for the public good; and
the stage now set TO complete the cycle by harass-
ing insurance institutions. Lawyers, newspapers,
every agency of free opinion which might counter
act the campaign of hate haye been abused.
No epithet Hitler could invent to describe the
Jews was more hate-arousing than those We ap-
Piled to business men. Perhaps the high point
reached when a federal administrator called them
''lttle men with rodent blood in their veins.' Our
newest administrator was mlder when he called the
employer who couldn't pay the fixed wage ''inde-
cent"
To harvest the sowing of hate and overturn the
established order, revolutionists must march with
muskets Black shirts, brown shirts, secret orders,
storm troopers, seizure of the army, their part we
all know But we, being wealthy nation do it
differently-as Professor Tugwell said in an un-
guarded moment, by "subterfuge"- -painlessly, but
just as effectively. Our muskets are money.
The head of PWA does not march with armed
ne:, into 124 municipalities to confiscate private
power plants. He marches in with $16O,62S, 1852
Retail stores are not taken over by force as in
Russia; establish competitive cooperatives with
money that was appropriated "to relieve Distress"
Banks do not yield up their buildings to armed
forces, they deliver their depositocs' money to the
Secretary of the Treasury, and face competition in
19 great federal lending agencies.
We, American citizens would fight an over
turn to the Fascist state by armed troops vet, we
have compacently viewed the march which has
taken us three-quarters of the way down the road
to Fascism. Washington today controls and alo-
Gates most of our working capital; it fixes wages
fixes hours and prices, and is in $50 different lines
of business Washington is moving surely into
state capitalism that marks the totalitarian coun-
tries of Europe. 49,
Those who deplore the changes taking place in
our american system of free enterprise should
continue to help dispel the hate against business
should JOIN the movement to show that business is
oenehcent, not malevoent, that "What helps bus-
ness helps you" and, second, move to deprive the
reVoIutionists of their muskets by demanding tax
reduction and that appropriation of savings through
1eaeral borrowings be stopped. --- .@.'..
Recent events show that democracy can apply
the brakes, but there must be no let-down in keep
ing the brakes in good working order-Merle
Thorpe in Nations Business - '.